Opinion ID: 1930886
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: The Alleged Illegality of Fatal Defects in the Warrant

Text: We find without merit the claim of plaintiffs in the third action that the ultimate issuance of the school construction bonds should be enjoined on the ground that there were fatal defects in the warrant which rendered illegal the election at which the people approved the project. Plaintiffs concentrate their attack upon Article 2 of the warrant reading as follows:  Article 2. Shall the School Directors of School Administrative District No. 71 be authorized to issue bonds or notes in the name of said District for capital outlay purposes in an amount not to exceed five million, two hundred thousand dollars ($5,200,000) to finance the costs of (i) constructing a new High School to be located in the Town of Kennebunk on the westerly side of Sea Road diagonally across from the existing town dump on property formerly owned by Rodney Ross and designated as lot number 13A on Kennebunk Tax Assessors Map 30 and (ii) remodeling the present High School and adjacent Junior High School for use as a Middle School on Fletcher Street in Kennebunk, said bonds or notes to be in lieu of the $4,800,000 authorized on June 11, 1974, which authorization will be deemed rescinded upon an affirmative result on this Article? (State law (20 M.R.S.A. 3457) now provides that the District will be reimbursed for construction costs and debt service incurred on account of approved school construction projects. The bonds or notes authorized hereby will not be issued until and unless such approval is obtained.) The infirmities claimed by plaintiffs are: (1) the language deviates from the form prescribed by 20 M.R.S.A. § 225(3) and, therefore, the warrant must be held invalid either because (a) no deviation from the statutory form is tolerable, or (b) in any event, the deviations here are of a substantive nature likely to confuse the voters; (2) the warrant posed questions in a manner incapable of answer; (3) the warrant denied the voters options they were entitled to have submitted to them; (4) the inclusion in the warrant of a question relating to the rescission of a prior bond issue was a fatal defect because the voters lacked authority to make such decision. We disagree with all the contentions. We reject out of hand the claim that any deviation from the statutory form, regardless of its substantive impact, renders the warrant fatally deficient. [9] Only that deviation is fatal which defeats the manifest legislative purpose underlying the statutory prescription of a form:that the issues to be voted upon be intelligibly presented to the electorate. See: Opinion of the Justices, 107 Me. 514, 78 A. 656 (1910); Dick v. Roberts, 8 Ill.2d 215, 133 N.E.2d 305 (1956); People ex rel. Davis v. Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad Company, 48 Ill.2d 176, 268 N.E.2d 411 (1971). [10] Here, plaintiffs focus upon two deviations as being substantively sufficient to require invalidation of the warrant. They say, first, that the Board did not present the issues intelligibly to the voters because it combined the funding of the construction of a new High School with the remodeling of the existing Senior and Junior High Schools and the rescission of a prior bond issue as incident to the authorization of a new bond issue. Plaintiffs assert, second, that the two sentences added in the parenthesis at the end of Article 2 contained information likely to create erroneous impressions in the minds of the voters. We find both claims without merit. Plainly, the references in the warrant to the rescission of the prior $4,800,000 bond issue, the remodeling of two existing schools and the construction of a new Senior High School gave no misleading information to the voters. Rather, it gave them correct information which they were entitled to know as having material bearing on the proposed school construction taken as an entire project. Similarly, by bringing to the attention of the voters that the remodeling of two existing buildings and of the construction of another building were functionally dependent parts of an integrated programto-wit, that the project of constructing the new High School necessitated the remodeling of existing facilities,the warrant provided the voters with accurate information concerning the totality of the school construction undertaken which it was appropriate that the voters know. Arguably, then, the claim of plaintiffs is sustainable only in its thrust that it presented unintelligible choices to the voters by requiring a single answer to a multiplicity of questions incapable of such answer. This contention must be rejected. In substance, the warrant asked the voters whether they wished to retain the existing bond authorization of $4,800,000 or to substitute for it (by rescinding it and approving) a bond issue in the specified higher amount of $5,200,000. If a majority of the voters favored the status quo, a no vote by them would clearly maintain it; if the majority wished to increase the authorized indebtedness, their yes votes would establish the increase. Similarly, because the remodeling of the two existing buildings and the construction of an additional building were functionally dependent features of an overall integrated project, a yes vote would approve the total project and a no vote would adequately manifest rejection of the total project. Plaintiffs' argument is also unconvincing in its import that by combining questions as it did, the Board denied the voters options which should have been afforded them. As to the contention that the voters should have been given opportunity to decide separately whether (1) they favored rescission of the previously approved bond issue (without replacement of it by a new bond issue) and (2) they wished to authorize a new issue in some amount other than $5,200,000, we know of no legal principle, and plaintiffs have called none to our attention, requiring the Board to submit such matters as discrete questions for voter decision. We are likewise unaware of a governing legal principle requiring the Board to submit the question of the construction of the new High School independently of the question of the remodeling of the two existing schools. The Board was authorized to have the voters accept or reject the proposed capital improvement plan as a total project. The basic function of School Directors is to make the initial choice of options to be put to referendum. The School Directors of the District have the duty, and the power, to manage the affairs of the School District. 20 M.R.S.A. § 301. It is for them to decide upon the matters to be presented to the electorate when elections are necessary to approve bond issues for school construction. 20 M.R.S.A. § 225. We hold unavailing the argument of plaintiffs concerning the language appearing in the parenthesis at the end of Article 2 which adverts to 20 M.R.S.A. § 3457 and informs the voters that (1) state law provides for reimbursement by the State to the School Administrative District of the costs of construction and debt, and (2) should State reimbursement for the bond not be forthcoming, the bonds will not be issued. Plaintiffs' contention that such information was misleading is erroneous. Under the provisions of 20 M.R.S.A. § 3457 the Commissioner of Education . . . shall allocate state financial assistance to School Administrative Districts on School Construction approved subsequent to the formation of such districts, and on school debts, . . .. (emphasis supplied) Once approval is forthcoming, reimbursement is contemplated as mandatory and automatic. That a legislative appropriation may not be forthcoming does not inject inaccuracy into the information. It is common knowledge that the Legislature may fail to appropriate monies for programs at any time. We attribute such knowledge to the voters of SAD No. 71 (in the absence of any special evidence here suggesting that the SAD No. 71 voters may have believed otherwise). Further, plaintiffs gain nothing by characterizing Section 3457 as recent and controversial legislation which should not have been mentioned to the voters without indication of the controversy surrounding it. We disagree with the characterizations. The facts are that the Legislature first provided for State financial support of local school construction in 1957. (P.L.1957, Chapter 364, Section 1). The 1973 amendment to which plaintiffs refer merely increased the percentage of that State support. (P.L.1973, Chapter 571, Section 15). This factual history does not fairly indicate the kind of controversy which would make a legislative appropriation highly unlikely and thus so speculative as to render misleading the statement in the warrant that State law provides for reimbursement of the costs of construction and the indebtedness. In any event, even were we to assume that the mention of provision for reimbursement was misleading, it would be inconsequential. The second sentence clearly indicates that issuance of the bonds is contingent on State financial assistance. Hence, even if State reimbursement be not forthcoming, the bonds simply will not be issued and no liability unexpected by the voters will have been incurred. Decisions in other jurisdictions tend to support our conclusion here that the warrant calling the election on January 22, 1975 was not fatally defective. In City of Raytown v. Kemp, 349 S.W. 2d 363 (Mo.1961), the Supreme Court of Missouri upheld a sewerage bond issue against an attack that the ballot included information not required by the statutory form concerning which taxpayers would be assessed for payment. In Knapp v. Unified School District No. 449, 209 Kan. 237, 496 P.2d 1400 (1972) the Court confronted facts strikingly similar to those before us. The ballot in Knapp stated that the amount of the subject bond issue would be reduced by any federal grants received. Turning aside a claim that the amount of federal grants should have been specified, the Supreme Court of Kansas held that the statement was not misleading. Finally, we find without merit the contention of plaintiffs that the warrant contained independently illegal matters in that it asked the voters to undertake action beyond their legal authority, namely, to rescind the previously approved bond issue of $4,800,000. It was long ago settled in this jurisdiction that it is an inherent right of voters to revoke an authority previously given by them when, as here, no innocent third party has relied to his detriment on the earlier authorization. In Getchell v. Inhabitants of Wells, 55 Me. 433 (1867), this Court approved the rescission by that Town's voters of an appropriation for snow removal. Similarly, in Blaisdell v. Inhabitants of the Town of York, 110 Me. 500, 87 A. 361 (1913), we upheld the dismissal of a committee authorized at a previous town meeting to build a bridge. More recently, we recognized the authority of the voters of North Berwick to rescind earlier approval of the formation of a School Administrative District where no third party rights had intervened. See: Inhabitants of the Town of North Berwick v. State Board of Education, Me., 227 A.2d 462 (1967). By prescribing a warrant form which omits to mention rescissions of bond issues, 20 M.R.S.A. § 225(3) reflects no legislative intention to override this well established doctrine. We view the legislative prescription of a form as merely an excess of caution by the Legislature to avoid voter confusion; it does not purport to restrict such voter authority as is otherwise independently acknowledged to exist. There were no fatal defects in the warrant of the SAD No. 71 Board of Directors calling the election of January 22, 1975 in which the $5,200,000 bond issue was approved by the people. The entries are: In Herman Cohen, et als v. Wentworth, et al (chronogically, the second action): Appeal dismissed. In Herman Cohen v. Ketchum, et al (chronologically, the first action): Appeal denied. In Herman Cohen, et als v. Maine School Administrative District No. 71, et al (chronologically, the third action): Appeal denied.