Court Opinion

ID: 9713171
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:10:05.193471+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:17.247342
License: Public Domain

Larson, J.
I respectfully dissent.
I cannot concur with the majority in its interpretation of section 276.13. The opinion erroneously places emphasis, I feel, where it was not intended by the legislature. The statute provides : “When it is proposed to include in such district a school corporation containing a city, town, or village with a population of two hundred or more inhabitants, the voters residing * * * outside the limits of such school corporation shall vote separately # * (Emphasis supplied.) The petition herein did not propose such an inclusion when filed, for there was no incorporated town of Pleasant Hill at the time of proposal.
In State ex rel. Hilfiker v. Seaton, 191 Iowa 81, 85, 181 N.W. 796, quoted by the majority, we made it clear that “If the petition fixing the boundaries of a proposed consolidated independent school district includes a school corporation containing a city, town, or village with a population of 200 or more inhabitants, the voters residing upon the territory outside of said school corporation shall vote separately * * (Emphasis supplied.) Here we find the emphasis placed upon the petition proposing the territory to be included. We have often said that this is the .time jurisdiction to proceed and continue unmolested is procured.
*559There is no question here but what, when the original petition was filed and jurisdiction obtained to continue the proposed reorganization, all of the territory in the Pleasant Hill district was rural and contained no incorporated village of over 200 population. Could subsequent collateral proceedings alter that plan of reorganization? We have said not most emphatically in the case of State ex rel. Harberts v. Klemme Community School District, 247 Iowa 48, 51, 72 N.W.2d 512, 514. We said therein:
“It is conceded the filing of the Belmond petition gave the joint board the initial jurisdiction over the area described in that petition. However, it did more; it gave the joint board sole jurisdiction for reorganization purposes.”
Clearly, any subsequent attempt to create a separate village in which opposition to the proposed school district could, and in this ease will, annul and defeat the entire reorganization was not contemplated in this Act. It should not be permitted, for it is a plain unauthorized subsequent interference with the sole jurisdiction previously acquired by the proposed reorganization petition.
It has been our announced policy to permit such reorganization to stand when possible, and the legislature announced its policy not to interfere with reorganizations in the process of completion by the “saving clause” in its repeal of chapter 276 of the 1950 Code.
I would not interpret sections 276.13, 276.15 and 276.16 so as to annul the reorganization completed and in operation.
I would affirm.