City of Panama City v. State

• Decision Date: 26 September 1952
• Citation: 60 So.2d 658
• Parties: CITY OF PANAMA CITY v. STATE et al.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 658

60 So.2d 658

CITY OF PANAMA CITY v. STATE et al.

Supreme Court of Florida, Division A.

Sept. 26, 1952.

Warren L. Fitzpatrick, Panama City, for appellant.

Mercer P. Spear, Panama City, for appellees.

Wilfred C. Varn, Panama City, amicus curiae.

HOBSON, Justice.

This is an appeal from a final decree entered on April 26, 1951, which dismissed appellant's Petition for Validation of Parking Meter Revenue Bonds in the amount of $165,000. The purposes for which the proposed bonds were to be issued were; financing the cost of the reconstruction, paving improvement of, and the installation of parking meters on, certain streets and roads in the City of Panama City, Florida.

The question for our determination is whether Chapter 26118, Special Acts of 1949, Laws of Florida, is sufficiently broad to authorize the issuance by the appellant of revenue bonds to be amortized over a period of approximately 20 years by use of excess revenue derived from fees, rentals or other income from the operation of parking meters.

We deem it appropriate at this point to observe that the proposed bonds state they are payable '* * * solely from and secured by a first and exclusive lien upon, and irrevocable pledge of, the excess parking meter revenues of said City * * *.' Other language contained in the proposed bonds expressly provides that said bonds will not constitute an indebtedness of the City of Panama City within the meaning of any constitutional, statutory or charter provision or limitation or a pledge of the full faith and credit of the City. There is a specific covenant that the holder or holders of any of the proposed bonds shall never have the right to require or compel the exercise of the ad valorem taxing power of said City to enforce payment of the principal or interest or to create a sinking fund for such purpose.

It is obvious that the real or primary purpose for the issuance of the proposed bonds is to provide funds with which the City may reconstruct, pave and improve certain streets or roads within its corporate limits. If this were not otherwise clearly apparent it is certainly made so by the language in the form of bond which is attached to the Petition which reads: 'This bond is one of an authorized issue of bonds * * *, issued for the purpose of financing the cost of the reconstruction, paving and improvements of streets and roads in said City * * *.'

In the case of State v. City of Miami Beach, Fla., 47 So.2d 865, we aproved the validation of a bond issue which had as its purpose the raising of funds to provide for acquiring, equipping, maintaining and improving existing and additional parking facilities for the City of Miami Beach. It is not difficult to consider the acquiring, equipping, maintaining and improving of existing and additional parking facilities as a proper exercise of the police power when such facilities are unquestionably needed and, practically speaking, a public necessity in order to properly regulate parking of automobiles and other vehicles. It is, however, an entirely different matter to broaden the scope of the police power to such extent as to hold that a bond issue may be floated payable from excess parking meter revenues, for the purpose of obtaining funds with which to reconstruct, pave and improve streets and roads in a city.

The providing of additional parking facilities on or off existing streets when the regulation of vehicular traffic and the parking of vehicles require them is one thing but the reconstruction, paving and improvement of streets and roads generally bears no reasonable relationship to the parking problem of a modern city. Streets and roads are construced, reconstructed, paved and improved primarily for the movement of vehicular traffic and only secondarily for parking purposes. Parking meters are placed upon streets, usually in the congested, down-town area, as a consequence of the existence of said streets. It appears to be getting the 'cart before the horse' to attempt to use parking meter revenues for the purpose of reconstructing, paving and improving streets and roads to the end that parking meters may be placed upon them. We do not consider the case of State v. City of Miami Beach, supra, authority for the position taken by the appellant herein.

It is true that the reconstruction, paving and improvement of streets and roads is not entirely unrelated to the regulation and control of vehicular traffic but the relationship is too remote to justify the use for such purposes of revenues from parking meters which are authorized under the police power as rental fees which if properly classified as a species of tax would fall in the category of excise taxes. A city may in the exercise of the police power establish an excise tax or license fee and the revenue derived therefrom may be sufficiently large to bear 'the expense of issuing the license and the cost of necessary inspection or police surveillance connected with the business or calling licensed, and all the incidental expenses that are likely to be imposed upon the public in consequence of the business licensed.' State ex rel. Harkow v. McCarthy, 126 Fla. 433, 171 So. 314, 317. However, the courts cannot permit a clear abuse of the police power, nor will they approve the levy of taxes under the guise of an exercise of such power for the purpose of raising revenues with the end result, as in this case, of the city making inordinate and unjustified profits. The learned Circuit Judge found that in the year 1950 appellant derived a net profit or revenue of more than $27,000 from its operation of parking meters.

Chapter 26118, supra, which was a Special Act, authorizes the appellant to 'Construct or Acquire, and Improve or Extend, Water Systems, Sewer Systems, Gas Systems, Electric Systems, Tunnels, Bridges, or Any Other Undertakings or Facilities from Which Said City Derives or Will Derive Fees, Charges or Revenues'. Section 2 of said Act defines the term 'undertaking' to mean 'water...