Court Opinion

ID: 9691364
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 20:27:22.828671+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:17.546103
License: Public Domain

SUNDBY, J.
(concurring). I concur in the result. However, I write separately to suggest the desirability of a clarifying amendment to sec. 117.035(l)(a), Stats. Contrary to the majority, I do not find this provision, which establishes the signing requirements for a petition for a referendum on a school district reorganization order, to be umambiguous.
The first requirement of the statute is that the petition be signed by a sufficient number of the electors "of the territory included in the proposed reorganized school district.” Sec. 117.035(l)(a), Stats. The majority acknowledges that, under sec. 115.001(6)(a), Stats., the proposed reorganized school district is Brodhead and the territory proposed to be attached thereto. Juda is excluded from the definition. Therefore, under the literal language of the statute, to be eligible to sign a referendum petition, an elector must reside within the Brodhead district or the territory proposed to be attached thereto.
The majority skips to the definition of "sufficient number of electors” and concludes that that definition overrides the requirement of residency within the proposed district, thus permitting Juda electors who do not reside within the proposed district to sign the referendum petition.
*204Prior to 1983 it was legislative policy that only electors residing within the proposed reorganized school district could petition for and vote on a reorganization order. Sec. 117.035(l)(a), Stats. (1981-82). At that time "a sufficient number of electors” was defined as "500 of the electors who reside in the proposed reorganized school district, or 10% of such electors who reside in cities and villages or 10% of such electors who reside in towns.” Id.
At that time, of course, the definition of "electors” in the first sentence of sec. 117.035(l)(a), Stats., was consistent with the legislative requirement that a petitioning elector was required to reside in the territory included in the proposed reorganized school district. This method of voting on reorganization orders set up an undesirable tension between urban and rural residents of a proposed reorganized school district which undoubtedly led to the amendment of the referendum procedure by the 1983 legislature.
In 1983 the emphasis shifted to the school districts affected by a reorganization order. The definition of "electors” was therefore amended to read: "A sufficient number of petitioners is 500 of the electors who reside in the proposed reorganized school district, or 10% of the electors who reside in either of the school districts affected by the order.” 1983 Wis. Act 479. The legislature did not, however, amend the first sentence of sec. 117.035(l)(a), Stats., to eliminate the requirement that only electors of the territory included in the proposed reorganized school district were eligible to petition for a referendum. The failure of the legislature to delete this requirement from sec. 117.035(l)(a) may be regarded as a "'legislatively dropped stitch in the statute.’” NCR Corp. v. Revenue Dept., 128 Wis. 2d 442, 457 n. 7, 384 N.W.2d 355, 363 *205(Ct. App. 1986), quoting Scharping v. Johnson, 32 Wis. 2d 383, 393-94 n. 6, 145 N.W.2d 691, 697 (1966). I would recognize it as such.