Skinner v. City of Santa Rosa

Citations

• 107 Cal. 464
• 40 P. 742
• 1895 Cal. LEXIS 777

Syllabus

<p>Municipal Corporations — Unauthorized Issuance of Bonds—Departure from Notice of Election—Change in Terms of Payment —Injunction.—Where a notice of election held under the act of 1889, as amended in 1891, which authorizes the incurring of indebtedness by municipal corporations for the construction of water-works and other improvements, notified the electors that the bonds to be issued were to bear annual interest at the rate of four per cent per annum, and to be payable at the office of the city treasurer, an ordinance passed after the result of the election was ascertained changing the form of the bonds so as to make them payable in the city of New York, in gold coin of the United States, with interest at four per cent per annum, payable semiannually in gold coin, the departure in the ordinance from the notice of election is fatal to the validity of the bonds provided for in the ordinance, and the sale and delivery thereof will be enjoined.</p> <p>Id.—Departure from Rate of Interest.—The common council cannot depart at all from the rate of interest submitted to the voters, and a provision for the payment of interest semiannually, under a notice of election stating that interest was to be payable annually, is an unauthorized increase of the rate.</p> <p>Id.—Place of Payment—Kind of Money—Submission to Electors.— Although the place of payment and the kind of money in which the bonds are to be paid, are not necessary to be submitted to the voters, yet, if they are submitted, the vote authorizing the indebtedness to be incurred imports the particulars named as the conditions upon which the assent of the voters has been given; and, where the question arises before the bonds have been delivered, the city has no power to issue them in a form which does not substantially comply with the terms stated in the ordinance of submission and notice of election.</p>