Court Opinion

ID: 9765780
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:19:03.007584+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:15.647127
License: Public Domain

Justice NIGRO,
concurring.
I agree with the majority that the Commonwealth Court properly dismissed Appellants’ amended complaint. Notably, however, the majority cites to Ortiz v. Commonwealth, 545 Pa. 279, 681 A.2d 152 (1996), for the proposition that the General Assembly has the authority to limit the scope of a municipality’s home rule powers. See Majority Slip Op. at 18 (citing Ortiz v. Commonwealth, 545 Pa. 279, 681 A.2d 152, 155 (1996)). I dissented in Ortiz based on my continuing belief that there is an exception to the above proposition insofar as the General Assembly does not have the right to restrain a municipality from using its home rule powers to enact an ordinance concerning a major public safety, health, or welfare problem where the General Assembly has not enacted a statute itself to *617address the problem. See Ortiz, 681 A.2d at 157 (Nigro, J., dissenting). Nevertheless, because the matter at issue here, i.e., the power to appoint members to the Parking Authority, is not a major public safety, health, or welfare problem, I agree with the majority that even if home rule powers are implicated here, the General Assembly had the authority to enact Act 22 and thereby restrain the City from using such powers to appoint members to the Parking Authority.