Hazard

This is an action to recover a street assessment of two hundred and eighteen dollars and forty-six cents for work done by plaintiff on Micheltorena street, in the city of Santa Barbara, under contract with the superintendent of streets.

On June 13, 1893, the city council, by resolution, declared its intention “ to grade, curb, and gutter” said street, “ from the northeasterly line of Chapala street to the northeasterly line of De la Vina street, a distance of one block, and duly posted and published said resolution.

*147 Thereafter, on July 1, 1893, the owners of a majority of the frontage on the proposed improvement in due form protested against said improvement; but the city council disregarded their protest, and without delay proceeded in the matter as if no objection or protest had been made.

The court below ruled that the protest was a bar to further proceedings for six months; and that all subsequent proceedings, including the assessment, were therefore void. Whether or not this ruling was correct is the principal question discussed by counsel on this appeal. The appellant contends that it was error.

The block improved was one of two adjoining ungraded blocks intervening…