Court Opinion

ID: 9539809
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:10:36.288082+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:22.246976
License: Public Domain

HUNTLEY, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion. I do so because it appears to me to ignore what should be a rather straight forward and simple analysis of this case by attempting to track through the history of certain Idaho code sections which do not really control the outcome or address the issue in this case.
Neither party, nor any member of this Court, questions the fact that under the statutes of the state of Idaho a city or other municipal corporation has the power to establish a garbage system. Such systems are usually operated as part of the sewer and water system and are operated as part of the total sanitation system, which sanitation is directly related to the power of the state and its municipalities to provide for the public health and welfare.
Inherent in the power to operate such a system is the power to collect reasonable fees to operate the system.
*541The City of Grangeville adopted its Ordinance No. 507 under date of July 10, 1978, part of which has been codified as Section 3-3-6 of the City of Grangeville Municipal Code. That ordinance and code provides in pertinent part:
... Notwithstanding the fact that the customer might be a tenant and receive the water, sewer or garbage bill, the owner and occupant of any premises using the water, sewer or garbage system, shall be jointly and severally liable for all fees and charges assessed by the City. Any owner of real property renting the same to others, who shall desire to have notification of the monthly charges, shall make written application to the City Clerk for such duplicate billing, and shall be charged, in addition to the water, sewer and garbage services, the actual costs of such duplicate billing.
No party, indeed not even this Court, has held that Ordinance 507 is unconstitutional and it is certainly not beyond the powers of a city to enact. The ordinance is straightforward, gives notice to both the owner and the tenant, and such ordinances have been sustained throughout the United States. The case is that simple, and this Court need not get lost in the attempt to analyze it on the basis of the statutory history, which history has nothing to do with whether or not a municipality has the basic power, under Idaho law, to enact an ordinance such as Grangeville Ordinance No. 507.
Accordingly, I would affirm both the decision of the magistrate court and the appellate decision of the district judge.