City of Shawnee v. Williamson

• Decision Date: 14 April 1959
• Docket Number: No. 38562,38562
• Citation: 338 P.2d 355
• Parties: CITY OF SHAWNEE, Oklahoma, a Municipal Corporation, Plaintiff, v. Mac Q. WILLIAMSON, Attorney General of the State of Oklahoma, and Ex-Officio Bond Commissioner of the State of Oklahoma, Defendant.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

Page 355

338 P.2d 355

1959 OK 64

CITY OF SHAWNEE, Oklahoma, a Municipal Corporation, Plaintiff, v. Mac Q. WILLIAMSON, Attorney General of the State of Oklahoma, and Ex-Officio Bond Commissioner of the State of Oklahoma, Defendant.

No. 38562.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

April 14, 1959.

Syllabus by the Court

A public municipal parking lot owned exclusively by a municipality is a public utility as that term is used in Section 27, Article 10 of the Constitution.

Original action in mandamus to compel the defendant to approve certain municipal parking lot bonds issued by the City of Shawnee. Writ granted.

Randall Pitman, City Atty., Miller & Peters, John T. Levergood, Thomas M. Stevens, Shawnee, George J. Fagin, Oklahoma City, of counsel, for plaintiff.

Mac Q. Williamson, Atty. Gen., Lynnie Clayton Spahn, Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendant.

WELCH, Justice.

This is an original action begun in this court by the plaintiff, City of Shawnee, Oklahoma, a municipal corporation, wherein it seeks a writ of mandamus to compel the defendant, Mac Q. Williamson, Attorney General, and Ex-Officio Bond Commissioner of the State of Oklahoma, to approve certain municipal parking lot bonds issued by the City of Shawnee, when said bonds, together with a duly certified transcript of the proceedings herein, were submitted to the defendant as provided by law, he declined to approve the bonds because there was a question as to the legality of the bond purpose.

This action then presents the question whether a public parking lot is a 'public utility' within the purview and meaning of Section 27, Article 10 of the Constitution of the State of Oklahoma; and whether the bonded indebtedness proposed to be incurred by the City of Shawnee as to the 'parking lots,' constitutes an unlawful and unauthorized attempt to impose a tax for a purpose not sanctioned by law.

Section 27, Article 10 of the Constitution of Oklahoma reads as follows:

'Any incorporated city or town in this State may, by a majority of the qualified property tax paying voters of such city or town, voting at an election to be held for that purpose, be allowed to become indebted in a larger amount than that specified in section twenty-six, for the purpose of purchasing or constructing public utilities, or for repairing the same, to be owned exclusively by such city: Provided, That any such city or town incurring any such indebtedness requiring the assent of the voters as aforesaid, shall have the power to provide for, and, before or at the time of incurring such indebtedness, shall provide for the collection of an annual tax in addition to the other taxes provided for by this Constitution, sufficient to pay the interest on such indebtedness as it falls due, and also to constitute a sinking fund for the payment of the principal thereof within twenty-five years from the time of contracting the same.'

The defendant in support of the contention that a parking lot is not a public utility has cited Coleman v. Frame, 26 Okl. 193, 109 P. 928, 31 L.R.A.,N.S., 556; State ex rel. City of Ada v. Williamson, 201 Okl. 547, 207 P.2d 922; State ex rel. City of Shawnee v. Williamson, 186 Okl. 278, 97 P.2d 74, 125 A.L.R. 1389; In re City of Miami, 43 Okl. 205, 141 P. 1174, and In re Bonds of City of Guthrie, 35 Okl. 494, 130 P. 265. We have examined these authorities and find that they all have held that street improvements do not constitute public utilities, since the streets are not exclusively owned and controlled by the municipality. We must agree with these authorities, however, we cannot agree that they are applicable to the question here presented, since the parking lots are to be exclusively owned by the municipality and they are not to be managed or used in the same manner as streets.

Defendant next contends that the provisions of Title 11 O.S.1951 §§ 1352 to 1359, inclusive, as amended by the 1953 Legislature, were designed to alleviage the existing problems of automotive congestion in cities, and indicate a legislative intent to relieve the taxpaying voters from any burden incident to the purchase, construction or maintenance of public parking lots. It is argued that by providing a specific method of financing a parking lot project, the Legislature apparently intended to bar and exclude every other method. We cannot agree that the suggested intent is apparent, nor that the Legislature intended to bar to could bar any method authorized by provision of the Constitution. Furthermore, in the case of Application of the City Council of City of Tahlequah, Okl., 285 P.2d 418, 419, it was held:

'All portions of 11 O.S.Supp.1953, Sec. 449.1 to 449.20 (Title 11, Chapter 8, 1953 Session Laws of Oklahoma) purporting to authorize certain cities and towns to become indebted in excess of the amount fixed in Oklahoma Constitution, Art. X, sec. 26, without complying with all provisions of section 27 thereof are unconstitutional and void.'

Neither our Constitution nor statutes have defined a public utility, nor has our court heretofore had the question of whether a parking lot owned by a municipality would constitute a public utility. However, this court, in a long line of decisions, has uniformly held that the term 'public utilities' as used in Section 27, Article 10 of the State Constitution, is synonymous with the term 'public use.' State ex rel. Edwards v. Millar, 21 Okl. 448, 96 P. 747; State ex rel. Manhattan Construction Co. v. Barnes, 22 Okl. 191, 97 P. 997, and Barnes v. Hill, 23 Okl. 207, 99 P. 927.

We have held that public parks, sidewalks and paving of the streets through parks, convention halls, sewers, public fire stations, electric light plants, municipal owned airports, public waterworks, cemeteries, public libraries, museums, all are public utilities within the meaning of that term as used in Section 27, Article 10 of...