Oakland Paving Co. v. Hilton

Citations

• 69 Cal. 479
• 11 P. 3
• 1886 Cal. LEXIS 672

Syllabus

<p>Street Work — City oi? Oakland—Statutes Regulating—Levy and Collection oe Assessment—Letting Contract—Constitutional Law. ■—The application was for a writ of mandate to compel the defendant, as the city marshal of the city of Oakland, to enter into and execute a certain contract for grading, curbing, and macadamizing to the official grade a portion of a street in the city of Oakland, and to fix the times for the commencement and completion of the work to be done under the contract. The proceedings for the work were taken under the act of April 4, 1864, and the various acts amendatory thereof, authorizing the city council of Oakland to improve the streets within the city limits, and under the act of March 18, 1885, providing for work upon streets, and for the construction of sewers within municipalities. Neither of such acts made any provision for levying, collecting, and paying into the treasury of the city an assessment previous to the making of a contract for letting or doing the work, or the commencement of the work, as required by section 19 of article 11 of the constitution of 1879. The petitioner contended that this requirement had been abrogated by an amendment to the constitution proposed by the legislature in 1883, and adopted by the people at the general election in 1884, and that the act of March 18, 1885, providing for a contract for doing street work in advance of an assessment levied, is constitutional. The proposed amendment, during its progress through the legislature, was referred to in the journals of the senate and the assembly as Senate Bill No. 10, but was not copied at large in the respective journals. Held by Thornton, J., and McKee, J., that the failure to enter the proposed amendment at large in the journals was in violation of section 1 of article 18 of the constitution, and that the amendment never took effect.</p> <p>Id. —Held further by Thornton, J., amd McKee, J., that section 19 of article 11 of the constitution was self-executing,