People v. Board of Supervisors

The question whether section 4 of Article XI of the Constitution is mandatory or merely directory, and addressed to the judgment and discretion of the Legislature, is one of great importance, for on its solution depends the validity of a large number of statutes, some of which are being acted upon every day. The language of the section is as follows: “The Legislature shall establish a system of county and town governments, which shall be as nearly uniform as practicable throughout the State.” The powers to *565 be conferred upon such governments are not prescribed in the Constitution; and it cannot be said that they acquire, by reason of their organization, any necessary or inherent powers, or that they possess any particular powers, because they have usually been conferred by the statutes of other States in organizing county governments. The question has not been expressly determined by this Court; but there are many cases in which the validity of legislation, like that in question, has been assumed by the Court, in which it might be said, if it could be said in any case, that the question has been determined by necessary implication. If any force is due to what is sometimes…

A writ of mandate was allowed by the District Court, commanding the defendants to issue bonds according to the provisions of “An act to provide road funds for the counties *568 of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara,” approved March 18, 1874. (Stats. 1873-4, p. 436.)

Section one of the act “empowers and requires” the board of supervisors of each of the counties named in the title to issue bonds to the amount of twenty thousand dollars, bearing interest, and in sums not less than five hundred and not more than one thousand dollars each.

Sections two, three and four relate to the form of the bonds. Section five provides that the board of each county must levy a special tax each year to pay interest on the bonds outstanding; section six requires of them to levy each year after 1874, an additional tax sufficient to pay ten per centum on the whole issue, and section seven provides for the redemption of the bonds.

Section eight directs that the board shall sell the bonds, after notice, to the person bidding the highest price in gold or notes, not less than ninety cents on the dollar. The board is given power, however, “to reject any or all bids,” and is authorized to sell, without…

1. One of the provisions of the act is that the county surveyor “must immediately commence and must diligently prosecute the work on said road to completion within as short a time as practicable after the passage of this act.” Another provision is as follows: “And in order that no de *564 lay may occur in the prosecution of the work on said road, the county treasurer of said county must immediately, upon the passage of this act, transfer one-half of the general road fund of said county remaining in the treasury over to said ‘ Cuesta Bead Fund, ’ and pay the same out to said surveyor in the manner hereinbefore provided.” The act further provides that those moneys are to be replaced in the general road fund by funds to be derived from the sale of the bonds in question. These important steps to be taken by the surveyor and treasurer immediately upon the passage of the act, “in order that no delay may occur in the prosecution of the work on said road, ” are wholly inconsistent with the exercise of discretion by the board as to whether the work should be done at all. The power expressly conferred upon the board, in the eighth section of the act, “to reject any or all bids,” is not…