Opinion ID: 2632326
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: effective date of ordinance

Text: ¶ 7 Both parties agree that NOEC's right to provide electric service to the Park hinges on whether the ordinance passed by the board of trustees became effective before NOEC began service within the Park. [1] NOEC has the authority to provide electric service to rural areas and to areas it served before annexation by a municipality. Okla. Stat. tit. 18, 437.2 (2001); Oklahoma Gas and Elec. Co., 1973 OK 158, 517 P.2d at 1127. Thus, NOEC has the right to provide electric service to customers within the Park if it was doing so before the annexation's effective date. Otherwise, PSO has the exclusive right to provide electric service to customers within the Park. ¶ 8 Title 11, section 14-103 provides for an emergency measure to go into effect upon its final passage unless the measure specifies a later date. Section 14-106 requires that a measure be published within fifteen days after its passage. Had the Town of Chelsea followed section 14-106, it is unquestioned that the annexation ordinance would have become effective when it was published. East Central Okla. Elec. Co-op., Inc. v. Oklahoma Gas & Elec. Co., 1973 OK 3, 505 P.2d 1324. ¶ 9 Pursuant to title 11, section 21-112, the mayor of a town must file an annexation ordinance in the county clerk's office, and the record in the county clerk's office is conclusive evidence of the annexation. The purpose of recording is to give notice to interested parties that an area has been annexed, the same purpose as publication. Burgess v. Independent Sch. Dist. No. 1, 1959 OK 37, ¶ 23, 336 P.2d 1077. The intended effect of section 21-112 is to immunize annexation ordinances from attacks based on procedural defects by making the recording in the county clerk's office conclusive evidence of the regularity of the proceedings. Okla. Stat. tit. 11, § 21-112 (2001); Welborn v. Whitney, 126 P.2d 263, 1942 OK 142. ¶ 10 Because section 21-112 was intended to remedy procedural defects in the annexation process, it is a curative statute. A curative statute is one which, while marking out a course for the officers to pursue, at the same time declares that certain irregularities shall not vitiate any proceedings that shall be had under the statute. Welborn v. Whitney, 126 P.2d at 267; 2 Norman J. Singer, Statutes and Statutory Construction § 41:11 (6th ed.2001). The Legislature may make immaterial any procedural requirement which it could have omitted from the original legislation. Welborn, 126 P.2d at 267; Singer, Statutes at § 41:11. The power to enact curative statutes does not extend to remedying a lack of authority to act at all. Welborn, 126 P.2d at 267. ¶ 11 Curative statutes have long been recognized by this Court as effectively curing non-jurisdictional procedural defects. Public Serv. Co. of Okla. v. Parkinson, 1943 OK 299, 193 Okla. 112, 141 P.2d 586; Welborn, 126 P.2d at 263. In Parkinson, a school annexation was attacked for failure to follow the statutory procedures for annexation. After the defective annexation, the Legislature passed a curative statute. This Court upheld the annexation based on the subsequently enacted curative statute. In Welborn, this Court recognized the effect of curative statutes when applied to the procedures leading up to the execution of a tax deed. Curative statutes applied to the defective exercise of already existing power are valid. Welborn, 126 P.2d at 266-67. However, a legislative body cannot validate the the exercise of assumed power not existing at the time of its purported exercise. Id. ¶ 12 In the present case, the Board of Trustees had authority to annex the Park. It followed the statutory procedures necessary for the annexation. It is unchallenged that the Park was properly annexed. Only the publication after adoption of the ordinance was omitted. The Legislature did not have to require the publication of the ordinance after it was adopted by the Board of Trustees. ¶ 13 The Legislature had the authority to cure defects caused from the failure to publish the ordinance after its adoption through section 21-112. Because the defect in the publication was cured by section 21-112, the ordinance became effective when it was filed in office of the county clerk and before NOEC initiated service within the Chelsea Industrial Park. Thus, the trial court was correct in issuing an injunction against NOEC. ¶ 14 This conclusion is consistent with rules of statutory construction utilized to determine legislative intent. Where two or more enactments are involved, the primary objective is to determine the latest expression of the legislative will. Grand River Dam Auth. v. State, 1982 OK 60, ¶ 24, 645 P.2d 1011, 1018. Under this rule, the last enactment will ordinarily prevail when there is an irreconcilable conflict between two statutes. Trask v. Johnson, 1969 OK 57, ¶ 6, 452 P.2d 575, 577. Section 14-106, requiring publication, was enacted in 1949 and first codified as section 579.2 of title 11. Because the conclusive evidence language of section 21-112 became effective in 1978, after section 14-106, section 21-112 controls. ¶ 15 In the same manner, the amendment to section 21-112 to include the conclusive evidence language was intentional and, in this case, significant. We will not deem the Legislature to have done a vain or useless act. Johnson v. City of Woodward, 2001 OK 85, ¶ 14, 38 P.3d 218, 224-25. To hold that section 21-112 did not cure the publication defect would be to leave the conclusive evidence language without meaning and useless. ¶ 16 PSO relies on East Central Okla. Elec. Co-op., Inc. v. Oklahoma Gas & Elec. Co., 1973 OK 3, 505 P.2d 1324. This case is not controlling because the conclusive evidence language did not become effective until 1978, after East Central was adopted. Thus, the conclusive evidence language was not at issue in East Central.