Holbrook v. Board of Directors of Imperial Irrigation District

EDMONDS, J. The petitioner seeks a writ of mandate directed to the Board of Directors of the Imperial Irrigation District, the individual members thereof and its secretary, to prevent these persons from including the offices of treasurer and assessor-collector of the district on the ballot at the general irrigation election to be held in February, 1937. As a resident of and the owner of land within the district, petitioner asserts its officers are proposing to accept nominations for the disputed offices and to provide ballots indicating that these offices are to be voted for.

[160]The Irrigation District Act (Stats. 1897, p. 254, as amended, Stats. 1927, p. 187; Deering’s Gen. Laws 1931, Act 3854) provides that “an election, which shall be known as the general irrigation district election, shall be held in each irrigation district on the first Wednesday in February in each odd-numbered year”. (Sec. 19.) It appears that at such election held in February, 1931, F. H. McIver was regularly elected to the office of treasurer and Yinnie Barry was elected assessor-collector for the four-year terms expiring in March, 1935. These offices were voted for at the general irrigation election held in February, 1935, but that election was held void. (Barry v. Board of Directors, 7 Cal. App. (2d) 412 [46 Pac. (2d) 298].) McIver and Barry have since continued to hold their respective offices and discharge the duties thereof.

The district has five directors, each of whom is elected from a division. The directors from divisions one, three and five were elected in February, 1933, for four-year terms expiring in March, 1937, and it is conceded that these offices will properly be voted upon at the general election to be held in February, 1937.

The question at issue requires a construction of the election provisions of the Irrigation District Act, supra. Section 19 of the act provides: “An election, which shall be known as the general irrigation district election, shall be held in each irrigation district on the first Wednesday in February in each odd-numbered year, at which a successor shall be chosen to each officer whose term will expire in March next thereafter. . . . The term of office of each elective officer of an irrigation district shall be four years, . . . but the expiration of the term of any officer shall not create a vacancy in his office, but he shall hold office until his successor shall have qualified. ’ ’ Special elections are provided for in section 19b, reading: “If an election is not held as herein provided, then upon the filing of a petition with the secretary of the board of directors of such district, signed by ten per cent of the electors residing within the boundaries of any such irrigation district, requesting that a special election be called for the election of such officers, the directors of such district shall thereupon call a special election thereof for the election of such officers, . . . The officers elected at such special elec-. tion shall each take office as soon as they shall have been