Owyhee bullion. [volume] (Silver City, I.T. [Idaho]) 1866-1867, 1867-04-18
Opinion of the Board of County
Commissioners Regarding the
County Officers.

ORl1l1OA1 Va bA1O 4oOo&NN VI ~OhllLV
Commissioners Regarding the
County Officers.
1t seems to be conceded that the act ap-
proved January 9th 1867, vests no power in
us as commissioners, to fix the amount of
the original bond to be required of the sew
eral officers therein enumerated except in
the case Of Justice of the Peace and Consta-
bles. The sixteenth and seventeenth sec
tons of that act prescribes the manner in
which the several county officers may be re.
qured by us to file additional or fu- tier
bonds, and the nineteenth section of the
same act provides that, "lf an officer, when
required so to do, shall fail to file a new bond
his office shall be deemed vacant"
With such foltfture imposed forfeiture to
file an additional bond, the act, or that part
of it now under consideration, must be deem
ed penal, and the loif iture under these sec
tons cannot be extended to any case not
brought clearly within them.
Section sixteen provides for the service Of
a summons giving five days notice to the
officer to show cause why he should not ex-
ecute an additional official bond. This Ian
guage would seem, in strctness, to require q
written summons. But whether this he so
not, and or whether the officers, who appeared
before this board, and failed to object to our
action fixing the amount Of their bonds, can
be said to have waved service of summons, it
is. perhaps unnecessary to inquire.
1t is true if we have an absolute and un-
comfortable, arbitrary discretion to require
additional bonds of an officer, then no one
can question, and we need assign no reason
for our action, our order of the 9th of Feb
ruary is good and binding upon the county
officers and those who failed to comply with
in twenty days by filing additional bonds
with two sufficient sureties to the whole a.
mount required have, under the statute, for
feited their Offices.
But from the case Of the people VS. Super
visors of Marin County California, Reports,
vol. 10, read before the Board it would seem
that in requiring additional bonds, we have
not an arbitrary discretion. That "ofiicers
are not to be subjected to the annoyance of
procuring new sureties upon the mere cap
rice of the Board and that our orderrequir-
ing additional or fUftlter bonds must show
the grounds, md sufficient legal grounds for the
requisition. lfthis view be correct, it fol
lows that this Board has not made any sufi-
cieat order to require the additional or fur
Tier bonds provided for by the statute Of
January 9Th.
Here, if the thirty-seventh section had been
omitted from that act, our inquiry would end.
But the legislature in that section has pro-
vided that "All Territorial. County and City
officers shall, on or before the first day of
March, A. ID. 1867, file new bonds, conform
ing to the provisions of this act, and in de-
fault thereof their said Offices shall be deemed
to be vacant, and may be filled as required
by law" This section requires no action
from this Board before the first of March.
tits obligatory upon the oilicers,in the absence
OF any action on our part, and the county
officers are as much bound by it, irrespective
of our action, as are the Territorial and City
officers named therein, over whom we have
no control, nor can an enactment requiring
an act to be performed on or before the first
OF March and prociding a penalty for. fai-
are, be esteemed as merey directory stat
ute. 1t the offices in question are not deem
ed to be vacant in case of default on the first
of March, there is no greater power to de-
clare them vacant, ii the default continue I'M
til the FIRST of July, or any other day. Or
IN other words, il the officers in question shall
neglect and refuse TO file the new bonds re-
CURED, at any time daring their term, such
neglect or refusal can no more imperil their
tenure of Office, than did their neglect or re-
fusal so to do on or before the first day of
Mach. If that date is directory merely,
then it always remains discretionary with the
officer whether he will ever comply with the
law by filing new bonds A request by the
Board to the officer, or officers in question
to comply with the statute, can add no new
sanction to the law.
lfthese views be correct, the several Terri
torial County and City officers, who were in
Office when this law took effect, and who
were required by law to qualify by filing