Davis

This is an application for a writ of mandate to compel the respondent, as city clerk of the city of Santa Barbara, to certify and cause to be published an ordinance of that city, and to sign his name and affix the corporate seal of the city to certain improvement bonds authorized by the said ordinance.

The city of Santa Barbara is organized under a freeholders’ charter, which provides that propositions to incur bonded indebtedness shall be submitted to vote in accordance with the general laws of the state. Acting under the provisions of the act entitled “An Act authorizing the incurring of indebtedness by cities, towns, and municipal corporations for municipal improvements, and regulating the acquisition, construction or completion thereof,” passed in 1901, commonly designated the “Municipal Improvement Act of 1901” (Stats. 1901, p. 29), as the same was amended in 1907 (Stats. 1907, p. 609), the mayor and council of said city, on the twenty-first day of May, 1907, passed a resolution determining that the public interest and necessity required the construction of a certain public highway known as the “Bast Boulevard” and that the cost of the construction thereof ($50,000) was too…