Siegel v. City of Belleville

• Decision Date: 24 June 1932
• Docket Number: No. 20986.,20986.
• Parties: SIEGEL v. CITY OF BELLEVILLE et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

349 Ill. 240

181 N.E. 687

SIEGEL

v.CITY OF BELLEVILLE et al.

No. 20986.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

June 24, 1932.

Error to Appellate Court, Fourth District, on Appeal from Circuit Court, St. Clair County; Louis Bernreuter, Judge.

Suit by Carl Siegel against the City of Belleville and others. Decree for complainant was reversed by the Appellate Court, and complainant brings certiorari.

Judgment of the Appellate Court reversed, and decree of the circuit court modified and affirmed.

James A. Farmer and Louis Klingel, both of Belleville, for plaintiff in error.

Louis J. Grossman, City Attorney, of Belleville, for defendants in error.

DE YOUNG, J.

Carl Siegel, on behalf of himself and other taxpayers of the city of Belleville, filed a bill in the circuit court of St. Clair county to restrain the city, its mayor, clerk, and treasurer, from expending public money in the purchase of certain fire apparatus. A joint and several demurrer to the bill was overruled, the defendants elected to abide by their demurrer, and an injunction, in accordance with the prayer of the bill, was granted. The defendants prosecuted an appeal to the Appellate Court for the Fourth District, and that court reversed the decree and remanded the cause to the circuit court, with directions to sustain the demurrer and to dismiss the bill for the want of equity. The cause is brought to this court upon a writ of certiorari granted on the application of the complainant.

The city of Belleville in St. Clair county is a municipal corporation organized under the general Cities and Villages Act. The city is divided into seven wards, and fourteen aldermen are therefore elected to the city council. The fiscal year of the city beings on the 1st day of May. The appropriations for the year beginning on May 1, 1930, relating to the fire department, were the following: ‘Fire department, $34,000; fire department, two mill tax, $36,000; fire department, foreign fire insurance, $13,500.’ On October 20, 1930, the council had under consideration the report of a committee concerning the proposed purchase of a fire or pumping engine. The committee stated that it had received six proposals, one to furnish such an engine for $11,985, another for $12,200, and each of the remaining four asked $13,000, and the purchase of the engine offered by the American-La France & Foamite Industries, Inc., one of the bidders, at $13,000 was recommended. An alderman moved concurrence in the report of the committee, and a roll call upon the motion showed seven ayes and seven nays. The result being a tie, the mayor voted in the affirmative and declared the motion carried. On the same day, the mayor and the city clerk, acting on behalf of the city, executed a contract in accordance with the committee's recommendation and the council's action thereon.

The plaintiff in error contends that the contract for the purchase of the fire or pumping engine is void for two reasons. In the order of their statement, these reasons are, first, that the concurrence of an actual majority of all the aldermen elected to the city council is necessary to the passage of an ordinance creating a liability against the city or authorizing the expenditure of its money, and consequently that the mayor is not empowered to vote upon the passage of such an ordinance even if the yeas and nays of the aldermen result in a tie; and, second, that the appropriations relating to the fire department are void because the city council neither specified the objects and purposes for which the appropriations were made, nor the amount appropriated for each object and purpose. The circuit court sustained both contentions, and declared the contract for the purchase of the engine void.

The answer to the first question requires a review of certain statutory provisions. Section 1 of article 3 of the act for the incorporation of cities and villages provides that the city council shall consist of the mayor and aldermen; section 8, that a majority of the aldermen elect shall constitute a quorum to do business, and section 13, that ‘The yeas and nays shall be taken upon the passage of all ordinances, and on all propositions to create any liability against the city, or for the expenditure or appropriation of its money, and in all other cases at the request of any member, which shall be entered on the journal of its proceedings; and the concurrence of a majority of all the members elected in the city council shall be necessary to the passage of any such ordinance or proposition: Provided, it shall require two-thirds of all the aldermen elect to sell any city or school property.’ Section 1 of article 2 of the same act provides that the chief executive officer of a city shall be the mayor, and section 6, that the mayor shall preside at all meetings of the city council, but shall not vote, except in case of a tie, when he shall give the casting vote. Cahill's Rev. St. 1931, c. 24, pars. 15, 20, 31, 39, 44, pp. 332, 333, 334; Smith-Hurd Rev. St. 1931, c. 24, §§ 15, 20, 31, 39, 44, pp. 337, 338, 340.

The foregoing statutory provisions obviously must be construed together and not separately. The city council consists of the mayor and aldermen; the mayor presides at all meetings of the council, but has no vote except in the case of a tie, when he shall cast the deciding vote. The mayor is therefore a part or member of the council, although his powers and duties differ from those of an alderman. The passage of an ordinance or the adoption of a proposition to create any liability against the city or to expend or appropriate its money requires the concurrence, by yeas and nays, entered on the journal, ‘of a majority of all the members elected in the city council.’ The concurrence of a majority required by section 13 of article 3 is, however, not of all the aldermen elected to, but of all the members elected in, the city council. When the Legislature intendedto speak only of aldermen, and not all the members of the city council, it spoke definitely and with discrimination. By section 8 of article 3 it provided that a majority of the aldermen elect shall constitute a quorum to do business; and by the proviso to section 13 of the same article that it shall require tow-thirds of all the aldermen elect to sell any city or school property. It is evident that the phrase ‘members elected in the city council’ in section 13 of article 3 includes both the mayor and the aldermen, and that, in case of a tie, all the aldermen elected to the city council voting, and the mayor casting his vote in the affirmative, the ayes of one-half of the aldermen together with the mayor's vote constitute the majority requisite to compliance with that section. If the contention of the plaintiff in error is sound, no ordinance can be passed by a city council when every alderman that may be elected to that body is present and votes and the yeas and nays of the aldermen are equal in number. Such a contention excludes the mayor from membership in the city council, notwithstanding the provision of section 1 of article 3 to the contrary; it incorporates in section 13 of the same article a limitation which that section does not contain, and it contravenes the provision of section 6 of article 2, that in case of a tie, the mayor shall give the casting vote. Neither statutory provision nor sound reason appears to support the claim that the mayor's right to vote, in the event of a tie, may be exercised only upon measures and propositions not within the provisions of section 13 of article 3 of the Cities and Villages Act. The motion to purchase the fire or pumping engine was therefore legally carried.

Statutory enactments must also be considered in answering the second question. Section 2 of article 7 of the Cities and Villages Act (Cahill's Rev. St. 1931, c. 24, par. 92, p. 345; Smith-Hurd Rev. St. 1931, c. 24, § 101, p. 361), provides that the city council shall within the first quarter of each fiscal year, pass an ordinance termed ‘the annual appropriation bill,’ in which the corporate authoritiesmay appropriate such sum or sums of money as may be deemed necessary to defray all necessary expenses and liabilities of the corporation, and in such ordinance shall specify the objects and purposes for which such appropriations are made, and the amount appropriated for each object and purpose. Similar requirements are contained in section 121 of the Revenue Act relating to taxes for county purposes (Cahill's Rev. St. 1931, c. 120, par. 139, p. 2333; Smith-Hurd Rev. St. 1931, c. 120, § 109, p. 2394), and in section 1 of article 8 of the Cities and Villages Act...