Opinion ID: 1963790
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: I-A-1 The Constitutional Aspects

Text: By virtue of Article IV, Part 3 § 1 of the Constitution of Maine monies raised by taxation may be expended only for public benefit. See: Libby v. City of Portland, supra, 105 Me. p. 373, 74 A. 805; Allen v. Inhabitants of Jay, 60 Me. 124, 128, 135 (1872). Although this Court has never directly addressed the question, we find plain and cogent indication that maintenance of a public park has long been looked upon as a public use. In 1871, one Justice of this Court who deemed unconstitutional, because for private use, proposed municipal gifts to assist local manufacturers, offered several examples of public benefit activity among which he included the establishment of . . . parks. Opinion of the Justices, 58 Me. 590, 602 (1871) (opinion of Dickerson, J.). Ten years later, the Legislature delegated its power of eminent domain to municipalities comprising more than 1,000 inhabitants for the purpose of taking land for public parks. P.L. 1881, Chapter 76 § 1. [7] We have found no case reaching this Court since passage of that statute which doubts the legislative assumption that such condemnation would be for public uses under Article I, Section 21 of the Maine Constitution. Moreover, this view finds support in the law of other jurisdictions. Shoemaker v. United States, 147 U.S. 282, 13 S.Ct. 361, 37 L.Ed. 170 (1893); Salisbury Land and Improvement Company v. Commonwealth, 215 Mass. 371, 102 N.E. 619 (1913). The City's authority, as here under scrutiny, is additionally circumscribed, however, statutorily insofar as a municipality has only those powers which the Legislature has delegated to it by statutes (themselves constitutional). We turn, then,without yet reaching the questions here specially precipitated by the particular money . . . in trust and conditional gift statutesto focus upon the generalized scope of authority legislatively delegated, as of 1903, to municipalities concerning the use of monies raised by taxation.