City of Chicago v. Blair

Citations

• 149 Ill. 310
• 24 L.R.A. 412

Syllabus

<p>1. Sprinkling streets—paying expense by special assessment. The municipal authorities in cities and villages organized under the general law for the incorporation thereof, have no power to provide that the cost of sprinkling the streets shall be paid by special assessment. The sprinkling of streets is not a local improvement, within the meaning of the statute authorizing cities and villages to make local improvements by special assessment.</p> <p>2. The power of a city or village to provide for the sprinkling of streets by special assessment is not expressly given, nor does it arise, by implication, from the powers expressly conferred, nor is it essential to the declared objects and purposes of the corporation.</p> <p>3. Local improvements—character—method of payment—discretion of municipal authorities. The method of construction, the material used, and whether it shall be treated as a local improvement, to be paid for in whole or in part by special assessment or special taxation, or is to be paid for out of the general revenues of the city or village, are matters resting within the legislative discretion of the municipal authorities. Improvements authorized to be made by this species of taxation are public improvements.</p> <p>4. An attempt by the municipal authorities to declare a purely private work a local improvement, within the meaning of the statute, would be ultra vires. A local improvement, within the meaning of the statute, is a public improvement which, by reason of its being confined to a locality, enhances the value of adjacent property, as distinguished from benefits diffused by it throughout the municipality.</p> <p>5. The power of a city council to declare what shall be local improvements is necessarily implied from the power to make the same. But this implication can arise only in respect of improvements which cities and villages are authorized to make by special assessment or special taxation.</p> <p>6. Same—basis of special assessment and speci