Court Opinion

ID: 9711226
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:26:48.412789+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:03.036756
License: Public Domain

Heffernan, J.
(dissenting). While I must defer to the inexorable logic of the majority, I respectfully disagree with the major premise upon which its syllogism rests.
The majority opinion appears to rest upon the premise that the constitution prohibits a municipality from changing its form of government by the adoption of a special charter. This is a misconstruction of the proscription of the constitution. The clear prohibition of the constitution is that “The legislature is prohibited from enacting any special or private law. . . . 9th. For incorporating any city, town or village, or to amend the charter thereof.” (Emphasis supplied.) Sec. 31, art. IV. The only effect of that constitutional provision is to prevent the legislature from tampering on an individual basis with the basic *202governmental structure of any city or village. This provision of the constitution has nothing to do with the case at issue — where a local government seeks to alter its own charter pursuant to law. The very purpose of the home-rule amendment is to permit such alteration.
Nor do I find that the home-rule amendment, sec. 3, art. XI, constitutes a limitation in this instance. The majority opinion takes the position that the phrase, “cities and villages organized pursuant to state law are hereby empowered, to determine their local affairs and government,” means that a municipal corporation must first be organized as a city before it can exercise its constitutional option not to be governed as other cities are governed. There is, no doubt, implicit in sec. 3 of art. XI the requirement that there be a properly organized governmental unit that is functionally structured to administer the exercise of the home-rule power. The village of Monona is such a unit “organized pursuant to state law.” Under the statutes and the constitution it has the right to determine its local affairs. To become a city and to modify the city charter law in the respects sought, in respects that are of “paramount concern” to the city and not the state, is a proper exercise of home-rule powers. It is important to realize that there was a government in being that could properly speak for the people of the area. For this court to say that what was approved by the representatives of the village of Monona and ratified by the electorate in referendum is a nullity because it was done in one step rather than in two is an exaltation of dubious form over substance, in disregard of the express will of the people.
Fortunately, this severely legalistic interpretation of the powers granted to municipal corporations by the people under the home-rule amendment is limited to the very facts of this case. The only rule of law for which this case is precedent is that a city must first be orga*203nized as a city before it can exercise city home-rule powers. As so properly and narrowly interpreted, it does no great harm to the principles of home rule. In the view of this writer, counsel for appellant correctly states that the “paramount interest” doctrine is the standard used by this court in determining the propriety of home-rule powers where the matter involved is of both local and statewide concern. This opinion does not deviate from that doctrine which has so recently been restated in Johnston v. Sheboygan (1966), 30 Wis. (2d) 179, 140 N. W. (2d) 247.
While an excess of caution might have suggested the bifurcated procedure that the majority considers to be the sine qua non of the proposed reorganization into a city, common sense dictated the efficent, fair, and reasonable method used in transforming Monona from a village to a city. The writer sees no violence that was thereby done to the axiom that a municipal corporation is a creature of the legislature — all that was done was pursuant to the state law as determined by the legislature. Any deviations therefrom were not only salutary but were so insignificant as to be de minimis. No legislative prerogative was slighted, and the will of the people was served by the proposed reorganization. I see no reason for striking down this ordinance. I respectfully dissent from the conclusion of the majority.