Court Opinion

ID: 9543322
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:44:17.648825+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:10:08.798147
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing.
Mr. Justice Moore:
In resolving the question of whether the Four-County Metropolitan Improvement District Act is constitutional, it was necessary in the public interest that a prompt announcement of the court’s decision be made. In view of the content of the petition for rehearing, wherein it is asserted that we have overlooked or misapprehended certain matters, we have determined to add to our original opinion that which follows, from which it will appear that we have neither “overlooked” nor “misapprehended” the authorities on which the sponsors of the district rely.
Throughout the briefs of counsel for the district and in the petition for rehearing it was contended that the *303law as applied in Milheim v. Moffat Tunnel District, 72 Colo. 268, 211 Pac. 649; People v. Lee, et al., 72 Colo. 598, 213 Pac. 583 (the Pueblo Flood Dist. case); People ex rel. v. Letford, 102 Colo. 284, 79 P. (2d) 274 (a water conservancy district case); and City of Aurora v. Aurora District, 112 Colo. 406, 149 P. (2d) 662 (a case involving a sanitation district in a non-home rule city); People ex rel. Stokes v. Newton, et al., 106 Colo. 61, 101 P. (2d) 21; and Anderson v. Town of Westminster, et al., 125 Colo. 408, 244 P. (2d) 371, should be applied to the case at bar.
It is said that the facts involved in those cases, and the statutes there under consideration, are comparable to the situation disclosed by the record in the instant case. We are fully satisfied that this contention cannot be justified, once the statute involved and the authority proposed thereunder is fully understood. We have no hesitancy in asserting that a careful comparison of the proposed four-county district with any district involved in the cases mentioned, or any other district authorized by law at any time in the judicial history of Colorado, will disclose that the only similarity discernible is that the source of the authority granted is an act of the legislature and that they are designated as a “district” for the creation of some type of “improvement.”
Before directing attention to a few most significant differences between the proposed district and those involved in the above mentioned cases, we agree that the law was correctly applied in each of said cases. We assert, however, that no multiple county district, embracing numerous home rule cities, can be empowered by action of the General Assembly to function in such cities in matters of local and municipal concern so long as Article XX remains a part of the constitution of Colorado. Any who seek to persuade this court to emasculate this constitutional provision by judicial fiat, are doomed to disappointment. To nullify constitutional safeguards for the sake of expediency in solving local problems of *304Home Rule Cities generally and of the City and County of Denver in particular, would establish a precedent contrary to all precepts of constitutional government and initiate a process under which all constitutional safeguards would ultimately perish.
The very essence of a “Home Rule City” is embodied in the constitutional mandate that in its local and municipal affairs the city has full, complete and exclusive authority. The legislature is powerless to change this essential concept of home rule.
In matters which are not local and municipal and are particular projects which cannot be handled by the immediate area in which the physical installation is located (as in the case of the Moffat Tunnel), or where water conservation will benefit a large area as in the Letford case and the Pueblo flood district case, or where co-operative effort between areas extending beyond municipal or county lines is essential with reference to a particular project in sanitation affecting the public health of the entire area, an “improvement district” is perfectly proper. Under such projects, benefits are unquestionably conferred upon a wide area and property within the area so- benefited contributes proportionately to the cost of the improvement by virtue of a mill levy upon the taxable property within the district, or by special assessment upon the real property the value of which is increased by the improvement. So far as the pronouncements of this court are concerned our recognition has never been given to any departure from the basic concept that an “improvement district” is geared to enhance the value of property; that such districts are financed by ad valorem taxes, or special assessments upon property; that the directors of such districts function as administrators of funds derived from taxes on real property the value of which has been enhanced by the “improvement.”
The Four-County district here involved abandons com*305pletely all of these basic concepts. The tax base is completely divorced from any property sought to be “improved.” A sales tax of 2% is imposed throughout the district. Thus at the very outset we have a significant departure from any district heretofore declared legal by this court.
Another glaring lack of similarity as between the present district and those, the validity of which was questioned, in the cases above mentioned, is that the proposed Four-County district wears an unprecedented suit of financial clothing, which completely repudiates the idea that the hundreds of varied improvements contemplated by the numerous local units which make up the district, would be conceived and constructed or purchased to effect a bona fide district-wide benefit resulting from such improvements. The districts which have been upheld in the past have had but one pocketbook, out of which are paid all expenses incurred by the board of directors in creating the improvements authorized and which beneficially affect the entire district to this one fund all taxpayers in the district contribute. The board of directors of such district has complete charge of the improvement before, during and after the construction. Such board does not need a “request” from any precinct, or city, or town, or county within the district before it can function. Nothing of the kind is necessary to give the district authority to function in promoting district-wide benefits. The “financial clothing” of the Four-County district, to which we have referred, has numerous separate pockets in it and anything that goes into one pocket must remain there to be expended only in supplying some local need requested by the particular local unit (such as a home rule city) which collected the particular fund from its own citizens. It is then carried down to the Four-County board and dropped into its own private earmarked pocket to be used only by that unit for some local requested improve*306ment to be created within its own geographical boundaries. If no request is made by the particular unit, which has deposited the money in one of the many pockets for a local improvement to be paid for out of the contents of that pocket, the board of directors has no power to create another or different improvement of any kind with the money thus frozen, no matter how urgent the need for a capital improvement might be elsewhere and which might be of benefit on a district-wide basis. This situation, undisputed on the admitted facts, certainly is not comparable to the methods of operation of any improvement district heretofore approved by this court. This multi-pocketed financial cloak and the lack of substantial control over district affairs by the governing board, is persuasive proof that the claim of a district-wide purpose to benefit the entire district by capital improvements and purchase of capital equipment, is a garment by which it is sought to avoid, if possible, the clear-cut provision of the constitution. If there is to be mutuality of benefit accruing throughout the district by the acquisition of improvements or equipment, all who enjoy the benefits should share in the cost thereof. There should not be twenty-five or thirty pockets in the financial cloak of the district containing money “earmarked” for certain units, placed there by those units, to be used only upon request of those units, if this creation is intended to be a bona fide attempt to create a district for the purpose of bestowing district-wide benefits, as distinguished from those projects which are, by their very nature, “local and municipal” in character. Under Article XX of the constitution such local needs must be provided by Home Rule Cities.
Proponents of the district urge that the widening of certain streets in the city of Denver would confer benefits on residents of counties within the district. This may be true but when considered in the light of the whole picture it falls far short of carrying legal significance. *307Such street improvements have always been a local and municipal chore. The construction, maintenance, surfacing and general care of streets within home rule cities have always been local and municipal matters. Only in the case of Arterial State and Federal Aid highways passing through a city is any exception made. The proposed widening or reconditioning of any street in Denver would be planned, requested and paid for exclusively by that city out of the pocket earmarked “Denver.” The suggestion would carry more conviction if the contemplated widening of a Denver street were an independent district project, planned by the district board, mutually contributed to by all in the district who receive a benefit therefrom. But where, as here, the local and municipal character of the improvement is carefully preserved, its inherent nature remains unchanged even though residents of adjoining counties have occasion to make use of the facility.
Another significant difference, standing out in bold relief, between the district now before us and any district considered in any of the decided cases, is the fact that after purchase of a piece of capital equipment or on completion of any capital improvement the district must forthwith convey it to the local unit which requested it, and which actually paid for it out of the pocket of the financial trousers of the district which was earmarked for that unit. In all other improvement, conservancy, or sanitary districts heretofore established, the improvements created (which in genuine substance serve the needs of the whole district) continue to be the property of the district which levied the tax to build them, and the administration, maintenance and operation thereof remains under the control of the board of directors of the district. This procedure is entirely consistent with the principle that bona fide district-wide benefits, and district acquired assets should be administered by officials of the district. In the Four-County district struc*308ture an entirely different situation is contemplated. The prime object to be served by the district here is to supply local needs. After completion of the improvement or after the purchase of capital equipment, the asset must be forthwith transferred to the ownership of the local “unit” requesting it, and the asset is no longer subject to any administrative direction by the officers of the district. Thus there is no assurance whatever that even the hollow shell of “district-wide benefit” would be continued after completion of the project and it is returned to the local unit where in substance it has always been. Can such an admitted purpose lead to a conclusion other than that the envisaged program involves the attempted solution of “local and municipal” problems? In this particular again we can find no similarity to the operations of any district which has heretofore been given legal recognition.
In yet another particular there is a marked lack of similarity in the matter of qualifications that must be met to become a member of the board of directors of the district. Generally, in order to qualify for membership on such a board, any resident in any area within the district is eligible. He is usually not required to reside in any particular precinct or town within the area. Not so in the instant case. Protection of the paramount local and municipal interests of the home rule City and County of Denver, which were primarily to be served by the district, was assured in the matter of representation on the board; and the “local” interests of other geographical units within the district were likewise protected by the manner in which the district board of directors was to be named.
Still another very patent difference appears from the fact that the statute purports to authorize the acquisition by the district of personal property, to be immediately turned over to a local unit to be used (in the case of home rule cities) in discharging their local and munici*309pal functions. This method of handling such matters is expressly forbidden by Article XX.
The specifications to which I have directed attention are only part of a chain of circumstances, the cumulative effect of which leads to the inescapable conclusion that the district was spawned for the primary purpose of supplying facilities and equipment which have always been considered and defined as local to areas which might have need for such facilities and equipment.
It is perfectly apparent that the major purpose for which the district was formed was to force the enactment of a 2% sales tax through the Four-County area, even though such tax might not be wanted or needed in areas outside Denver. Reduced to its essence, the creation of the district was nothing more than a smoke screen under which it was sought to get around the provisions of the constitution which command that with reference to local and municipal functions, a home rule city must be exactly that.
Historically, home rule cities, in numerous controversies before this court, have consistently insisted that in the handling of their local and municipal affairs they had exclusive control under Article XX. The position taken by the district in the instant case cannot be reconciled with the previous advocacy of such cities in numerous cases. We would be most unrealistic if we failed to recognize that in the instant case the voice of the district is in actual fact the voice of Denver.
Home rule cities should pursue their rights and duties and exercise exclusive control over their municipal affairs pursuant to Article XX of the constitution, or they should recognize the fact, if such it be, that economic changes and evolutions brought on by the passage of time and expansion of population have made that concept of home rule obsolete, and take proper legal action to gain redress. If in fact the home rule provision of the constitution is obsolete the remedy is to bring *310about its repeal or amendment. It would indeed be a “black day” for Denver as well as for the entire state of Colorado if this court were to presume to amend or repeal this provision of the constitution by judicial fiat. Only by the vote of all the people of the State of Colorado may such result be accomplished, and their votes must first be recorded and the majority thereof one way or another determine the result. Under the separation of powers of government, a basic cornerstone in our way of life, it is not the function of the judiciary to destroy constitutional provisions by judicial decision. This is true even though the constitutional provision in question may in fact be a “horse and buggy device” as referred to by those whose plans are thwarted thereby.
The petition for rehearing is denied.
Mr. Chief Justice Day, Mr. Justice Sutton, Mr. Justice Hall and Mr. Justice Frantz concur in the foregoing.
Mr. Justice McWilliams dissents.
Mr. Justice Pringle does not participate.