State ex rel. Chastain v. City of Kansas City

• Decision Date: 12 May 2009
• Docket Number: No. WD 70100.,WD 70100.
• Citation: 289 S.W.3d 759
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, ex rel. Karen CHASTAIN, et al., Appellants, v. CITY OF KANSAS CITY, Missouri, et al., Respondents.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

289 S.W.3d 759

STATE of Missouri, ex rel. Karen CHASTAIN, et al., Appellants, v. CITY OF KANSAS CITY, Missouri, et al., Respondents.

No. WD 70100.

Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District.

May 12, 2009.

Application for Transfer to Supreme Court Denied June 23, 2009.

Application for Transfer Denied September 1, 2009.

Valerie A. Chastain, Esq., Bedford, VA, for appellant.

Douglas McMillan, Esq., Galen P. Beaufort, Esq., George S. Diegel, Esq., Kansas City, Jon M. Krebbs, Esq., Liberty and Steven B. Salmon, Esq., Gladstone, MO, for respondent.

Before DIVISION ONE: ALOK AHUJA, Presiding Judge, HAROLD L. LOWENSTEIN, Judge and THOMAS H. NEWTON, Chief Judge.

HAROLD L. LOWENSTEIN, Judge.

I. OVERVIEW

This is a suit filed under section 527.010, RSMo 2000 et seq., to have article VII, section 704 of the Kansas City Charter declared unconstitutional. This appeal pivots on a single issue: whether a municipal charter provision permitting a city council to repeal any voter initiated municipal ordinance is in violation of the Missouri Constitution. The appellant in this case is a committee formed from a group of Kansas City residents that organized and obtained a successful initiative petition and received a majority vote of the electorate to have the proceeds of Kansas City's three-eighths cent transportation sales tax, used for the city's bus transit system, extended by twenty-five years, with the proceeds used instead to fund a light rail system designed to run through Kansas City, from approximately the Kansas City Zoo to the airport.

II. FACTS

Kansas City is a constitutional charter city organized under article VI, section 19 of the Missouri Constitution. The citizens of Kansas City voted to adopt the Kansas City Charter ("Charter"), which permits the city's electors to propose an ordinance through an initiative process. The initiative process first requires the city's electors to create a petition containing the proposed ordinance. Kansas City, Mo. Charter art. VII, § 701(2006). The petitioners must then obtain a requisite number of signatures from the city's electorate, as set forth in the Charter, and submit the signed petition to the city clerk. Id. Thereafter, the city council ("the Council") may vote to pass the ordinance, but if the Council fails to pass it, or passes it in different form, the Charter allows the petitioners to require the Council to submit the proposed ordinance to the electorate for a vote at the next available municipal or state election. Id. at §§ 702-03.

In the summer of 2006, a group of five Kansas City residents formed a committee ("the Committee") and undertook the beginning stages of the initiative process. The Committee created a petition containing a proposed ordinance that called for extending an existing three-eighths cent transportation sales tax, set to expire on March 31, 2009, for twenty-five years, with the proceeds of the tax to be used solely for constructing, operating and maintaining a light rail transportation system in Kansas City. Following the procedures set forth in the Charter, the Committee obtained the requisite number of signatures and submitted the petition to the city clerk. However, the Council failed to pass the proposed light rail ordinance. Acting under sections 702-03 of the Charter, the Committee required the Council to present the proposed ordinance to the electorate at the next available election. The Council complied, and the ordinance was placed on the November 7, 2006 ballot. The city's electorate voted to adopt the light rail ordinance.

One year and one day later, on November 8, 2007, nine members of the Council and the Mayor voted to repeal the light rail ordinance under the authority section 704 of the Charter, which provides in pertinent part:

No ordinance adopted at the polls under the initiative shall be amended or repealed by the Council within one year of such adoption except by the affirmative vote of nine (9) members thereof. Thereafter such ordinance may be amended or repealed as any other ordinance.

In repealing the ordinance pursuant to section 704, the Council noted that studies conducted to determine the viability of the light rail plan indicated that the light rail could not be constructed, maintained, and operated within the budget outlined in the proposed ordinance.

On January 16, 2008, the Committee filed a lawsuit against the City of Kansas City ("the City"), naming members of the Council, various members of the Kansas City Board of Parks and Recreation, and the Mayor as defendants, in their individual and official capacities. The Committee sought a declaratory judgment and injunctive relief.

Specifically, the Committee requested that the court declare section 704 of the Charter unconstitutional or, in the alternative, declare that section 704, as applied, is unconstitutional to the extent that the Council and the Mayor acted in bad faith and with the intent to restrict the rights conferred by the initiative provisions of article III, sections 49-53, of the Missouri Constitution. In conjunction with a declaration that section 704 is unconstitutional, the Committee sought a writ of mandamus from the trial court ordering the Council and the Mayor to implement the light rail ordinance. The Committee also asked the trial court to declare that the light rail ordinance is not in violation of article III, section 51 or article X, sections 16-24, of the Missouri Constitution, not in conflict with sections 412, 1001, 1003, or 1004 of the Charter, and not in violation of section 82.240, RSMo.2000.

Additionally, the Committee sought injunctions prohibiting the Council from placing any issue on the April 2008 ballot, or any ballot thereafter, relating to the extension of the three-eighths cent transportation sales tax for Kansas City's bus transit system. As alleged in the complaint, the Committee was anticipating the aforementioned tax proposal by the Council, and if the Council proposed such a tax, the Committee argued, it would conflict with the tax plan outlined in the light rail ordinance, which called for extending the three-eighths cent transportation sales tax for the proposed light rail transportation system. For further relief, the Committee also requested $10,000 in compensatory damages, $200,000 in punitive damages, and attorneys' fees.

On January 24, 2008, the Council passed the ordinance anticipated in the Committee's lawsuit. The ordinance placed an issue on the April 2008 ballot proposing the continuance of the three-eighths cent transportation sales tax for Kansas City's bus transit system. In response, the Committee amended its original lawsuit, adding various members of the Board of Elections as defendants. The Committee asked the court to grant a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction against all the defendants in an attempt to prevent any action related to placing the newly enacted bus tax before the City's electorate for vote on the April 2008 ballot, or any time thereafter. However, the trial court denied the Committee's request for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction, allowing the defendants to proceed with the newly enacted bus tax and the April 2008 election. The court reasoned that, "[i]f later there is a finding that the City was incorrect, the election can be set aside."

Thereafter, the City filed a motion to dismiss, asking the trial court to dismiss all of the Committee's remaining claims for a declaratory judgment, injunctive relief, damages, and attorneys' fees. The City alleged that, because section 704 of the Charter is constitutional, the Committee is not entitled to a declaratory judgment or damages, and thus, the lawsuit failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. The Committee filed a responsive motion, arguing that the City's motion to dismiss should be denied because the lawsuit invoked substantive principles of law that entitle the Committee to a declaratory judgment. The Committee also argued that the City's motion failed to offer suggestions in support of dismissing the Committee's claims for injunctive relief, and thus, the City's motion should be denied with respect to those claims.

The trial court ultimately granted the City's motion and dismissed all of the claims contained in the Committee's lawsuit. In its judgment, the court held: (1) section 704 of the Charter is constitutional; (2) the same process that allowed the Committee's proposed light rail ordinance and subsequent vote on it also allowed the Council to repeal the ordinance; (3) the Council followed the required steps to repeal the light rail ordinance and violated no existing law or public policy in doing so; (4) the individual claims against the defendants are barred by official immunity and legislative immunity; and (5) all actions taken by the defendants were done in their official capacity. The Committee requested that the trial court amend the judgment by including specific findings and rulings with respect to their claim that the Mayor and members of the Council acted in bad faith and, in addition, amend the judgment by declaring whether the light rail ordinance violated article III, section 51 or article X, sections 16-24, of the Missouri Constitution, sections 412, 1001, 1003, or 1004 of the Charter, and section 82.240, RSMo.2000. The trial court overruled the Committee's motion to amend the judgment.

The Committee appealed the trial court's ruling to the Supreme Court of Missouri, which declined review and transferred the Committee's appeal to this court. Under article V, section III, of the Missouri Constitution, this court has general appellate jurisdiction in all cases not within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Missouri Supreme Court. This appeal involves a challenge to the constitutional validity of a municipal ordinance, and as such, does not involve any matter reserved for the exclusive jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of Missouri under ...