Court Opinion

ID: 9605934
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:43:25.616217+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:31.003430
License: Public Domain

Higgins, J., dissenting.
The records in this case and in its predecessor, Greensboro v. Wall, 247 N.C. 516, 101 S.E. 2d 413, show a comprehensive and far-reaching redevelopment plan for the City of Greensboro. To carry out the plan will require the city and its agencies to levy taxes and to issue bonds.
The city has available the sum of $15,600 for the purchase of the lot 20 x 90 feet here involved. In a highly technical sense the transaction, therefore, may stop half a step short of butting head-on into the constitutional prohibition against expenditures of tax and bond money without an approving vote. This little transaction involves a lot which the city does not need except as a part of the plan. This *615proceeding, therefore, appears to me to be a trial balloon to see if perchance this Court may be led along step by step to the approval of the plan without requiring the city to submit the issue to the voters. The city should be required to face up to the real issue. I vote to reverse the judgment and dismiss this action on the ground that it does not present a real controversy.