Court Opinion

ID: 9571342
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:30:54.288698+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:30:18.345548
License: Public Domain

HALLEY, Vice Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent to the majority opinion for several reasons. Limitations of space and time prevent a full discussion of all of these. I will set out some. Caddo Electric is not permitted under its corporate charter to dispose of electric power in a municipality with a population in excess of 1,500 inhabitants. 18 O.S.1961 § 437.1, provides as follows:
“Cooperative, non-profit, membership corporations may be organized under this Act for the purpose of supplying electric energy and promoting and extending the use thereof in rural areas. Corporations organized under this Act and corporations which become subject to this Act in the manner hereinafter provided are hereinafter referred to as ‘cooperatives.’ ”
Under the same Title at Section 437.28, “Rural Area” is defined as follows:
“(a) ‘Rural Area’ means any area not included within the boundaries of any incorporated or unincorporated city, town or village, having a population in excess of fifteen hundred (1500) persons;”
Clearly under these two provisions of our statutes a rural electric cooperative does not have the authority to dispose of electrical power in the City of El Reno which has a greater population than 1,500.
My next reason for dissenting is Caddo Electric, a corporation, had no franchise to sell or otherwise dispose of electric power in the City of El Reno. Section 7 of Article VI of the Charter of the City of El Reno is as follows:
“The City of El Reno shall never grant, extend or renew a franchise without the approval of a majority of the qualified electors residing within its corporate limits, who shall vote thereon at a general or special election; and no proposed ordinance granting or extending the time of any franchise shall be put upon its final passage within thirty days after its introduction nor until it has been published not less than once a week for four consective weeks in two daily newspapers of general circulation, published in said city, then said ordinance shall be published for the required time in all of the weekly papers published in said city.”
It is not necessary because of the clearness of our statutes on this point to offer further argument but I do say that the case of Farmers Electric Cooperative Corp. v. Arkansas Power and Light Co., 220 Ark. 652, 249 S.W.2d 837, sustains my position.
Article XVIII § 5(a) of our Constitution is as follows:
“Grant, extension or renewal — Approval by Voters — -Term
“No municipal corporation shall ever grant, extend, or renew a franchise, without the approval of a majority of the qualified electors residing within its corporate limits, who shall vote thereon at a general or special election; and the legislative body of any such corporation may submit any such matter for approval or disapproval to such electors at any general municipal election, or call a special election for such purpose at any time upon thirty days’ notice; and no franchise shall be granted, extended, or renewed for a longer term than twenty-five years.”
It is admitted that the Caddo Electric Cooperative had not complied with or conformed to this section. It is no concern of ours that the City of El Reno extended its corporate boundaries. There is no charge that it was illegally done.
When an area is taken into the limits of a municipality everything contained therein becomes amenable to the laws and *242regulations of the municipality. Here the Caddo Electric had no semblence of a franchise and this it must have to operate in the City of El Reno. To permit it would be contrary to Section 5(a) of Article XVIII of the Oklahoma Constitution.
In my opinion it is erroneous to say that Caddo Electric acquired a property right in electrical lines in an area later brought into the corporate limits of a municipality. To me there is no difference in stopping a cooperative from carrying on business in a municipality where it has no franchise than if it had had a franchise and it had been legally revoked.
It was never intended that rural electric cooperatives should operate in competition with electrical plants municipally owned or privately owned plants operating under a franchise from an incorporated city or town over 1,500 inhabitants. To permit it is contrary to the genius of rural electric cooperatives. Neither was it intended that they should be money making institutions. They were created to bring electrical service to areas where it was not profitable to privately owned systems, and for that reason were given privileges not extended to privately owned operations.
I dissent.