Source: http://www.actionpa.org/fluoride/lawandcourts/ca-lincoln-initiative.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 02:20:05+00:00

Document:
* Assigned by Chairman of Judicial Council.
Proceeding in mandamus to compel a city council to submit to an election a proposed initiative ordinance to prohibit addition of fluorides to the city's public water supply.
DISPOSITION: Affirmed. Judgment granting writ affirmed.
COUNSEL: Robert J. Trombley for Defendants and Appellants.
Bowers & Sinclair and Floyd H. Bowers for Plaintiffs and Respondents.
JUDGES: Friedman, J. Pierce, P. J., and Van Dyke, J., * concurred.
* Retired Presiding Justice of the District Court of Appeal sitting under assignment by the Chairman of the Judicial Council.
OPINION: [*743] [***308] On July 10, 1962, the City Council of the City of Lincoln adopted a resolution directing fluoridation of the municipal water supply, subject to the approval of the State Board of Public Health. A group of electors circulated [*744] a petition proposing an initiative ordinance to prohibit addition of fluorides to the city's public water supply. On September 15, 1963, the city clerk submitted the petition to the council with a certificate showing that it was [**2] signed by more than 15 per cent of the municipal voters. When a proposed initiative ordinance bearing that percentage of signatures is presented to the city council, the law requires it either to adopt the ordinance or immediately call a special election for its submission to the voters. (Elec. Code, § 4011.) The Lincoln city council refused to take either step. Several electors then filed this mandate action to force the city council to submit the proposed ordinance to election. After a hearing the lower court issued a peremptory writ and the city appeals.
Essentially, the city's position may be described as follows: An ordinance proposed by initiative must be one that the city council could itself enact; the Legislature has adopted a comprehensive scheme entrusting control of domestic water supplies to the State Department of Public Health, as a result of which a municipal decision to fluoridate becomes an administrative rather than legislative act, hence not subject to the initiative power of the municipal electors. We reject this position.
In recent years fluoridation of public water supplies as a means of reducing the incidence of dental caries among children has been the subject of widespread and heated controversy. Strenuously advocated by the dental and medical [**8] experts, it is widely opposed upon a variety of religious, political and scientific grounds. The debate has been heavily annotated and we need not restate easily available references. Many are collected in Dietz, op. cit., and in 38 Notre Dame Lawyer 71, et seq. The traditional goals of water treatment are purity and potability. Fluoridation -- aside from claims of merit or demerit -- seeks a different goal, medication of public water supplies for a therapeutic purpose.
In meeting its responsibility for local health and safety, a city legislative body may decide that the traditional, [*747] accepted goals of water treatment are enough. Alternatively, it may decide to fluoridate, thus aiming for the relatively new and relatively controversial goal of preventive dental therapy. In a real sense, such a decision is one "constituting a declaration of public purpose, and making provision for ways and means of its accomplishment . . . ." (McKevitt v. City of Sacramento, supra, 55 Cal.App. at p. 124.) Intrinsically therefore, as well as in its police power origin, the decision to fluoridate is legislative rather than administrative.
These statutes, constituting the only statutory regulation of the quality of water for human consumption, are aimed at the objectives of safety and potability. (DeAryan v. Butler, supra, 119 Cal.App.2d at p. 681.) Essentially, they cast the [*748] state board in the role of a censor upon local decisions. Within the relatively wide latitude permitted by health and potability standards, proposals for treatment or changes in treatment originate with the municipal water supplier, not with the state. Section 4021, in mandatory terms, requires that a permit be granted if the board [**11] makes a finding of purity and potability, demonstrating a design to promote rather than destroy local autonomy over treatment methods up to the point where purity and potability are threatened.
This statutory plan does not incorporate any standard dealing with the fortification of water for therapeutic purposes. To be sure, the addition of fluoride to public water, or the cessation of fluoridation under an existing permit, may be accomplished only with permission of the state board. This permission, however, does not turn on the protection of dental health. If the state board finds that the initiation of fluoride treatment will not affect the purity, potability or safety of the water, section 4021 demands that a permit be issued. If the board finds that cessation of fluoride treatment will not make the water impure, unpotable or dangerous, it must permit cessation. This scheme of statutory regulation does not express any state policy, one way or the other, on fluoridation as a therapeutic measure. Instead, it is focused on the orthodox "pre-fluoridation" goals of water treatment. Thus, in deciding whether or not to fluoridate, a city council acts as the legislative exponent [**12] of local policy, not as the administrative instrumentality of state policy. The scheme of state legislation does not affect the intrinsically legislative character of a decision for or against fluoridation of municipal water supplies.
On December 4, 1963, the State Board of Public Health issued an amended permit to the city of Lincoln for a program of water treatment including fluoridation. We take judicial notice of that action. (Code Civ. Proc., § 1875, subd. 3.) The proposed initiative ordinance would prohibit the method of treatment now allowed by the state permit. State law, however, prevents modification of the city's treatment method without a further amendment of its permit. (Health & Saf. Code, § 4011.5.) Adverting to the pronouncement that an initiative ordinance must constitute such legislation as the council itself has power to pass, the city now urges that the city council would not have power to decree cessation of fluoridation without a state permit, ergo the voters possess no greater power.
The argument comes close to an assertion that a council [*749] decision to fluoridate, once implemented, may not be reversed by the very council which made it. [**13] As we have held, the proposed initiative ordinance would operate in an area of local concern only partially occupied by state law. (Cf. In re Lane, 58 Cal.2d 99 [22 Cal.Rptr. 857, 372 P.2d 897].) It may be enforced, of course, only if it is "not in conflict with general laws." (Cal. Const., art. XI, § 11; Simpson v. City of Los Angeles, 40 Cal.2d 271, 278 [253 P.2d 464].) The fallacy of the city's argument is its assumption of a nonexistent conflict. If adopted by the electors, the initiative ordinance will receive an interpretation which confers validity rather than one which results in nullity. (Civ. Code, § 3541; Brooks v. Stewart, 97 Cal.App.2d 385, 390 [218 P.2d 56]; 6 McQuillin on Municipal Corporations (3d ed.) pp. 122-123.) Unless such a construction will defeat its apparent purpose, it is to be construed in harmony with applicable provisions of state law. (6 McQuillin, op. cit., p. 101.) Upon adoption of the ordinance the state permit law would become [***312] one of its implicit conditions, contemplating the city's application to the State Board of Public Health for an amended permit and termination of fluoridation upon issuance of [**14] a permit approving termination.

References: § 4011
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 § 1875
 § 4011
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 § 3541
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