Munn v. Sch. Tp. of Soap Creek

• Decision Date: 11 April 1900
• Citation: 110 Iowa 652,82 N.W. 323
• Parties: MUNN v. SCHOOL TP. OF SOAP CREEK ET AL.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

110 Iowa 652

82 N.W. 323

MUNN

v.SCHOOL TP. OF SOAP CREEK ET AL.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

April 11, 1900.

Appeal from district court, Davis county; T. M. Fee, Judge.

Action to compel defendants, as school directors, to order an election to determine whether an independent district shall be organized. Order issued as prayed, and defendants appeal. Affirmed.Payne & Sowers, for appellants.

Rominger & Rominger, for appellee.

LADD, J.

The plaintiff and 16 other residents of the village of Belknap petitioned the board of school directors of Soap Creek township, in which it was situated, “to set us off as an independent school district.” Shaffer and 21 others, in a petition filed on the same day, asked that sections 35 and 36, each of which included a part of the village plat, also sections 25, 26, and the E. 3/4 of section 34, be attached thereto. Blankenship and five others, on April 15, 1898, prayed that the S. E. 1/4 S. E. 1/4 of section 22, all of section 27 except the N. W. 1/4 N. W. 1/4, and the W. 1/4 of section 34, also be attached. The board of directors on the following day, by a vote of six to two, refused to “grant Belknap's petition for an independent district.” Munn appealed to the county superintendent, by whom the action of the board was reversed, and an election ordered to determine whether an independent district, composed of Belknap only, be established. On appeal taken to the state superintendent of public instruction, the decision was so modified as to require an election also in the territory described in the Shaffer and Blankenship petitions. The directors declined to follow the decision of the state superintendent, and this action was brought to compel them to do so. 1. There is no merit in the contention that the board, in denying Belknap's petition, acted only on that presented by Munn and the 16 villagers. Under the statute, the written petition of any 10 voters of the village is essential. Without it, nothing may be done. Eliminate it, and the scheme of organizing an independent district is gone. This is apparent from the language of section 2794 of the Code: “Upon the written petition of any ten voters of a city, town or village of over one hundred residents to the board of the school township in which the portion of the town plat having the largest number of voters is situated, such board shall establish the boundaries of a proposed independent district, including therein all of the city, town or village, and also such contiguous territory as is authorized by a written petition of a majority of the resident electors of the contiguous territory proposed to be included in said district, in not smaller subdivisions than entire forties of land, in the same or any adjoining school townships, as may best subserve the convenience of the people for school purposes, and shall give the same notices of a meeting, as required in other cases, at which meeting all voters upon the territory included within the contemplated independent district shall be allowed to vote by ballot for or against such separate organization. When it is proposed to include territory outside the town, city or village, the voters residing upon such outside territory shall be entitled to vote separately upon the proposition for the formation of such new district, by presenting a petition of at least twenty-five per cent. of the voters residing upon such outside territory, and if a majority of the votes so cast is against including such outside territory, then the proposed independent district shall not be formed.”

Besides, the record indicates the purpose of the directors to reject the entire proposition to set apart a separate district. All the petitions referred to its formation, and one might be designated “Belknap's Petition” quite as appropriately as another. Had no petitions save that of the villagers been presented, then the board must have submitted to the electors residing on the plat the propriety of organizing such a district. But the voters living on territory contiguous are given the right to have it included within the boundaries to be fixed, if a majority so request, and if it “best subserve the convenience of the people for school purposes.” The...