Court Opinion

ID: 5483562
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-01-10 02:02:53.279124+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:33:39.306486
License: Public Domain

Fboessel, J.
(concurring). I concur for affirmance with Judge Desmond. I agree — and for the reasons stated by him — that the contract between the authority and the city in nowise violates section 1 of article VIII of the State Constitution.
While section 1493 of the Public Authorities Law provides that the authority’s bonds shall not be a debt of the city, and *255that the city shall not be liable thereon, nor shall they be payable out of any funds other than those of the authority, this language does not forbid the city from sharing voluntarily with the authority its parking meter funds as provided in the contract. The city is charged with the burdensome obligation of solving its problem of traffic congestion, which plagues so many of our municipalities today. Since it may in its efforts to relieve this problem condemn real property at its own cost, not only for the projects of the authority, but for new highways and the widening of .existing highways, as provided in subdivision 2 of section 1487, increase its police force or otherwise expend moneys in aid of this purpose, surely it may in aid of the same purpose and at much less cost voluntarily make grants to the authority.
Indeed, subdivision 12 of section 1485 of the Public Authorities Law, enacted simultaneously with section 1493, and which must be read together, expressly authorizes the authority to “ accept grants, loans or contributions from the * * * city * * * and to expend the proceeds for any purposes of the authority ” (emphasis supplied). It necessarily follows that if the city may thus make an unconditional grant of moneys it may voluntarily undertake a much lesser responsibility by limiting the amount of its contributions to not more than a specific sum, payable only out of parking meter fees when available, “ for any purposes of the authority ”.