Holding v. Franklin County Zoning Bd. of Adjustment, 96-480
| Decision Date | 18 June 1997 |
| Docket Number | No. 96-480,96-480 |
| Parties | John B. HOLDING, Almyra V. Holding, Wanda E. Spainhower, Gary L. Uhlenhopp, Franklin County Historical Society, Dewitt R. Mallory Farms Company, Lee B. Blum, and Bob Butson, Appellants, v. FRANKLIN COUNTY ZONING BOARD OF ADJUSTMENT, Appellee, and Giese Construction Company, Inc., Kent E. Klopfenstein, Karen A. Klopfenstein, James Heinz, and Jeanine Heinz, Intervenors-Appellees. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Raymond P. Drew of Drew Law Firm, P.C., Hampton, for appellants.
G.A. Cady, III, of Hobson, Cady & Cady, Hampton, for appellees Franklin County Zoning Board of Adjustment, Kent E. Klopfenstein, Karen A. Klopfenstein, James Heinz, and Jeanine Heinz.
Brian L. Yung of Bennett, Crimmins & Yung, Fort Dodge, for appellee Giese Construction Co.
Considered en banc.
The trial court ruled that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction to review a decision of a county zoning board. The holding was based on the timing of the district court challenge, which the court determined to have been brought prematurely. The question is presented on facts that seem almost ludicrous. A statute provides for court review by way of a petition for certiorari within a period set from the board's final action. The statutory scheme for this particular board's operation seems to contemplate that the board's public records can be kept in a private residence, and they were here. Although there was certainly nothing surreptitious about the record keeping in the present case, or any suggestion that the parties could not have inquired into them, the challenged ruling seems to present something of an anomaly. The parties lost a statutory right to challenge administrative action because it was, it turned out, not really final--but only as revealed in records kept in the zoning board's administrator's private residence. We reverse.
I. Before reciting the facts, we point out that the trial court did not lack subject matter jurisdiction in this controversy. For several years we have sought to correct a formerly widespread misimpression that often confused a court's lack of subject matter jurisdiction with a court's lack of authority to act in a particular matter. There is a certain poetic justice in placing this task on us because the confusion can be traced at least in part to some of our own past cases.
We hope the distinction is now clear as it is important: the term subject matter jurisdiction refers to the power of a court to hear and determine the class of cases to which the proceedings in question belong. Where subject matter jurisdiction exists, it does not necessarily follow that a court has authority to act in a specific case included within that general class. We have tried to make this distinction clear in numerous more recent cases. See, e.g., Christie v. Rolscreen Co., 448 N.W.2d 447, 450 (Iowa 1989). Subject matter jurisdiction is not lacking in the present case because the legislature has clearly given Iowa courts the power to act in challenges to decisions of county zoning commissions. At issue is only whether authority to act in this controversy should be withheld because of the claimed premature filing of the court challenge.
II. Giese Construction Company, Inc., Kent E. Klopfenstein, Karen A. Klopfenstein, James Heinz, and Jeanine Heinz (intervenors) filed an application for a conditional use permit to operate a sand and gravel pit on a tract of land in Franklin County. The Franklin County board of adjustment (the board) held a hearing on the application on March 21, 1995. The application was tabled until a June 6, 1995, hearing because of protests from area residents. At the June 6 hearing the board passed a resolution granting the application but, unknown to the applicants and protestors, it was not "signed" and officially "filed" until July 21, 1995. Even then the papers continued to be stored in the "office" of the zoning administrator at his personal residence.
The plaintiffs filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the district court on July 5, 1995. This was after the final decision of the board was announced at the public hearing on June 6, but before the resolution was officially signed and filed by the board on July 21. The board answered and the permit applicants intervened.
The intervenors and board moved to dismiss. The court noted that the board did not have an office in the courthouse, had not officially designated an office, and that the board delivered the resolution to the zoning administrator at his personal residence, where it was kept on the board's behalf. The court ruled there was no statutory requirement that the board designate an office, and no impediment to its office being located outside a public building. The court then ruled the zoning administrator's personal residence was the board's office. The district court sustained the motion to dismiss.
The matter is before us on plaintiffs' appeal. Our review is de novo. Iowa R.App. P. 4. Issues of the jurisdiction, authority, and venue of the district court are legal issues reviewed on error. In re Marriage of Engler, 532 N.W.2d 747, 748 (Iowa 1995). Issues concerning the interpretation and construction of statutes are questions of law for us to decide. State v. Erbe, 519 N.W.2d 812, 813 (Iowa 1994).
III. Iowa Code chapter 335 (1995) governs county zoning and county boards of adjustment. Section 335.10 provides for the appointment of a county board of adjustment by the county board of supervisors. Section 335.12 governs the operations of county boards of adjustment. This section directs the board to adopt rules and provide for meetings, all of which shall be open to the public. The section goes on to specify:
The board shall keep minutes of its proceedings, showing the vote of each member upon each question, or if absent or failing to vote, indicating such fact, and shall keep records of its examinations and other official actions, all of which shall be immediately filed in the office of the board and shall be a public record.
Iowa Code § 335.12 (emphasis added). Code section 335.18 grants an aggrieved party the right to appeal a decision of the board of adjustment to the district court. This section provides:
Any person or persons, jointly or severally, aggrieved by any decision of the board of adjustment under the provisions of this chapter ... may present to the court of record a petition, duly verified, setting forth that such decision is illegal, in whole or in part, specifying the grounds of the illegality. Such petition shall be presented to the court within thirty days after the filing of the decision in the office of the board.
Iowa Code § 335.18 (emphasis added).
Because the board's resolutions are public records, Iowa Code chapter 22 () is implicated. The purpose of chapter 22 is to obviate "unnecessary secrecy in conducting the public's business." US West Communications, Inc. v. Office of Consumer Advocate, 498 N.W.2d 711, 713 (Iowa 1993). Iowa Code section 22.2 grants the public a general right to examine public records.
Like the district court, we find nothing in Code chapter 335 that requires zoning board records to be kept in a public building. This is in contrast to a requirement for board records in an unrelated statute. Iowa Code section 468.173, concerning records of county levy and drainage districts, are specifically required to be kept in the office of the county auditor. See National Properties Corp. v. Polk County, 386 N.W.2d 98, 103 (Iowa 1986). The requirement is intended to make the records more accessible for examination. Id. But the legislature imposed no similar requirement on zoning board records, and we must assume the omission was deliberate. Although we are considerably less than enthusiastic about the practice of storing public records in a private residence, the wisdom of the legislation is not a proper judicial consideration. 1
IV. We do think the records' location calls for a liberal approach in assessing the procedural requirements of the chapter. In this light we think it is reasonable to find compliance with the time requirements for asserting the present challenge.
The present case illustrates why the informality surrounding the private possession of public records cries out against a strict interpretation of these timing requirements. It is clear that all parties attending the June 6 board meeting considered the board's action at the time to be the official grant of the application. Those attending, including the plaintiffs, had a right to assume the "filing" would be done immediately as required by statute. Iowa Code § 335.12 (). Finally, it is important that the "flaw" relied on here relates to the beginning--not the end--of the period appropriate for filing.
Under the circumstances we think it is appropriate to interpret the thirty-day time requirement for filing a petition under Iowa Code section 335.18 () as we did in a somewhat analogous statute in Tombergs v. City of Eldridge, 433 N.W.2d 731 (Iowa 1988). Tombergs involved an appeal from a special city assessment under Iowa Code section 384.66(2), which was also claimed to have been filed prematurely. We rejected the challenge. 433 N.W.2d at 733. The statute in Tombergs was, to be sure, vastly broader than the one involved here. See Iowa Code § 384.66(2) (). Notwithstanding the more closely circumscribed time period described in Code section 335.18, we think, for the reasons we have explained, it should also be interpreted to allow a challenge to the board's action by filing a petition for certiorari anytime until thirty days after filing of...
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