Court Opinion

ID: 9576562
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:26:00.312237+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:09:57.599741
License: Public Domain

FELDMAN, Vice Chief Justice,
dissenting.
The court adopts no specific test for distinguishing between legislative and administrative acts. In applying a variety of tests, the court neglects the fundamental question: at what point could citizens of Mesa opposed to the widening of Country Club Drive reasonably have been expected to challenge the project through a referendum? The court holds that the April 1987 bond measure, approved by the voters, was the relevant legislative enactment. Because I believe this misapplies the proper test and effectively denies citizens any meaningful referendum rights in this and similar cases, I must dissent.
The majority does not apply the pragmatic method we followed in Pioneer Trust Co. v. Pima County, 168 Ariz. 61, 811 P.2d 22 (1991), in which we insisted on “[l]ooking at [a zoning matter] realistically.” Id. at 65, 811 P.2d at 26. We adopted “the time of conditional rezoning as the triggering time for a referendum,” in part because it “provides a bright-line rule easily ascertainable by all interested parties.” Id. at 66, 811 P.2d at 27. We betray those principles if we deny a citizen the right to refer a municipal ordinance because she took a bond election for what it was: a measure to raise money for future unspecified street improvements. It is likewise inconsistent to permit referenda on minor zoning amendments, as in Pioneer, but not to permit a referendum on a city council’s decision to spend $30 million to convert a specific street into a major regional “super street.”
The court holds that the Council’s November 5 resolution, which gave final approval to the Project, was not a legislative act because it merely carried out the policy declared in the bond election. The bond measure authorized the city to raise $30 million for the very general purpose of constructing and improving the city’s streets. The measure did not, however, establish even as a matter of general city policy that Country Club Drive should be a major component of a regional traffic-flow network. In reaching a contrary conclusion, the court relies on a tenuous syllogism: the bond election established the policy of improving the city’s streets; Country Club Drive is a street in the city; therefore, the bond election established the policy of improving Country Club Drive. 169 Ariz. at 491, 821 P.2d at 153.3
The April 1987 bond proposal mentioned neither Country Club Drive nor any other street. Its broad policy of raising money to improve the city’s streets was a purpose that many residents of a fast-growing city might support, even if opposed to any particular street-widening project.4 It is total*497ly unrealistic to expect that citizens opposed to the improvement of Country Club Drive would commence referendum procedures unless and until the Council had directly committed to improve Country Club Drive in some specific manner. Not until the Council passed the resolutions in question was Country Club Drive officially slated for improvement. Plaintiff exercised her referendum rights as soon as the Council finalized its commitment to improve Country Club Drive. Had plaintiff attempted to refer the issue of Country Club Drive earlier — for example, when the Council adopted an amended General Plan in May 1988 — her petition likely would have been challenged as legally premature; the Council could have taken the position that it had not yet committed to undertake any specific improvement.
In the principal cases cited by the majority, the implementing ordinances that were held to be administrative acts were all preceded by legislation specific at least in the type of improvement to be constructed. In State v. Leeman, 149 Neb. 847, 32 N.W.2d 918, 923 (1948) the electors approved a bond measure to acquire land and build a municipal auditorium on it. The court found a later ordinance executing these acts to be administrative. In Monahan v. Funk, 137 Or. 580, 3 P.2d 778, 780 (1931), the voters authorized the city council to acquire property “and to construct thereon a new crematory.” The court held that the council’s subsequent ordinance directing a commissioner to purchase a tract of land was non-referable. See also City of Idaho Springs v. Blackwell, 731 P.2d 1250 (Colo.1987) (ordinance establishing three percent sales and use taxes to fund prioritized projects including a city hall was legislative act; subsequent resolution to purchase a parcel and to move a building to that parcel for use as city hall was administrative act).
In all of these cases, citizens concerned about the construction of an auditorium, crematory, or city hall could reasonably have been expected to challenge them at the time the enabling legislation was enacted. Although the ordinances referred in these cases were unclear as to the location of the project, they were specific enough about what was being built that anyone who might support the project as a general matter but be opposed to it being built, for example, in their neighborhood would be motivated to mount a referendum campaign. By broadening this line of authority to encompass the matter at hand, the majority inappropriately restricts plaintiff’s referendum rights. Moreover, even these cases overly restrict the scope of municipal decisions subject to referendum because they hold ordinances that specify the type of improvement but not the location to be legislative and subsequent ordinances specifying a site to be administrative.
Cases like this should be decided by determining whether the challenged ordinance or resolution commits to a specific project at a particular location and pertains to an improvement of such general importance or magnitude as is likely to concern and interest the body of citizens of the municipality as a whole. See Hopping v. City of Richmond, 170 Cal. 605, 150 P. 977 (1915) (council’s resolution effectively committed city to build a city hall, to build it on land offered to city for that purpose, and was therefore legislative act). If so, the enactment is legislative in nature, is therefore subject to the referendum, and all subsequent implementing enactments are administrative acts.
In the case before us, the November 5 ordinance is the measure that, for the first time, specified both the nature of the improvement and its location. The improvement contemplated is not confined to a small area but requires the redesign and reconstruction of much of a main commercial street at a very significant cost, with the city’s expenditures to be financed by general obligation bonds. In my view, if the right of referendum is to have any real meaning, the November 5 ordinance was a legislative act subject to referendum.

. The court’s attempt to distinguish State v. Jacobs, 135 Kan. 513, 11 P.2d 739 (1932), also turns on its finding the bond election to be the relevant legislative act. Jacobs held that an ordinance approving the widening of a street and providing for the expense thereof was legislative. The majority argues that Jacobs is distinguishable because in that case there had been no other legislative act prior to the challenged ordinance. 169 Ariz. at 493, 821 P.2d at 155.

. The majority claims that this “lack of specificity may well be a valid reason to oppose a bond proposal," but itself recognizes that a certain degree of flexibility is a necessary part of bond funding. At 491, 821 P.2d at 153.