Sawyer

By this action the petitioners sought a writ of mandate to compel the Board of Supervisors of Napa County either to adopt a certain proposed ordinance, or to submit the same to an election. The trial court denied the appellants’ petition, and the cause is now before us upon appeal from such order.

It is conceded that the initiative petition proposing the ordinance is in proper form and contains a sufficient number of signers. The proposed ordinance has for its purpose a limit of the size of storage dams on Napa River, and is, so far as necessary to be considered herein, as follows:

The remainder of the ordinance has to do with enforcement provisions and not with substantive matter.

To the appellants’ petition the respondents interposed a demurrer containing nineteen specifications, the principal ones only of which need be mentioned, to wit: That the Board of Supervisors does not possess the authority to pass the proposed ordinance; that the ordinance is in conflict with the general laws of the state of California; that the ordinance is unreasonable; that the ordinance is an unreasonable application of the police power of the state; that the ordinance is special and local in its…