The Daytona daily news. [volume] (Daytona, Fla.) 1903-1926, 1922-01-22
Advertiser
Legal Opinion by Geo. A. DeCottes, State Alto
on the Proposed Charter

Due to the many contradictory legal opinions by
local attorneys the proposed charter have requested
our States Attorney for opinion which is published
below:
Sanford Florida January p, 1922.
Mr.. c. F. Johnston,
Daytona Florida.
Dear Sir:
At your request have carefully read the proposed
charter Of the city of Daytona to be voted upon at
election to be held at Daytona Florida on Tuesday Jan
uary oath, 1922.
find many of the various provisions of this charter
to be inconsistent and contradictory in character and
would take great amount of thought and labor to
arrive at correct Interpretation of the several provis
ions of the charter where the language used uncertain
and ambiguous In my opinion, the adoption of this
charter in it's present form would create fruitful source
of endless litigation in order to have udically deter
mined what might be meant by the various uncertain
and ambiguous provisions of said charter.
Further careful reading of the proposed charter
discoses certain undesirable features of civic admins
tratiOn to be Incorporated therein.
Under this proposed charter. the commission IS
vested with mitess power of taxation, and Sec lol
does contain any provisions prescribing the maxi
mum milage of the tax levy for any year general
purposes. There should be provision contained IN
the charter prescribing the maximum tax levy for gen
eral purposes for any one year.
Section 10 of the proposed charter is very vague and
uncertain in its terms 1t reads in part follows
THE affirmative of majority shall be necessary to
adopt any ordinance resolution but this section fails
to whether the majority referred to is the ority
of quorum consisting of four members of the commits
sion or aiortv of the entire commission consisting
of seven members From the language used in Sec 10.
it is impossible to determine Just what and
this section of the charter would necessarily have to be
udciay construed before the exact meaning thereof
could be finally determined
100 of the charter dealing with the collection Of
delinquent taxes provides that the City Tax Collector
shall have power issue distress warrants to enforce
collection of taxes. Section 107 provides that taxes
and assessments together with interest and the cost Of
collection thereof shall be hen upon the propert =
assessed until paid and that all such items shall be
forced as other liens. Sec los provides that the CITY
Tax Collector shall unless otherwise provided proceed
Substantially in the manner IN the collection of
and in the sale of land and personal property
the non-paymelt of and licenses do State Col
IecfOrs.
There is office in the State of Florida knowlbas
the State Collector. therefore in the collection of deln-
quent under the proposed charter the city of
ayona would be restricted in the collection thereof
the manner prescribed in Section loo and Section l07
of the proposed charter; and IN proceeding under Sec
I07 the language of which is mandatory. it would be
necessary have recorded in the public records of No-
STA county, each and every lien claimed by the city of
Daytona covering taxes and assessments and it would
be necessary proceed with within the period
year after the filing of said lien otherwise the
folcement of said lien would become barred bv the
of limitations The Supreme Court of the State
of Florida has recently decided this rery p0inf in the
of the City of Sanford C. NaNtceH ct al de
cided January 18th 1922 in cch case represented
the appellants.
Another very serious Objectionable feature of the pro-
posed charter in Sec Ill, making it mandatory upon
the commissioners when the owners of aioritN of
the frontage of }able to be assessed for any ne