Court Opinion

ID: 9667208
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:38:34.068068+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:57:47.959303
License: Public Domain

Robert H. Dudley, Justice, concurring. I concur in holding that the City’s attempt to use tax money to bail out the creditors of a privately owned venture was not a use of tax money for a public purpose. For that reason the bond issue is invalid. Unfortunately, the majority opinion goes much farther and overrules Snodgrass v. Pocahontas, 189 Ark. 819, 75 S.W.2d 223 (1934), and its progeny. Since Snodgrass, supra, this court has consistently held that the Constitution of Arkansas authorizes cities to incur long term debt for the purpose of making authorized improvements for public purposes, without conducting an election, if the debt is to be repaid solely out of revenues generated by those improvements, and the repayment does not place a burden on the taxpayer for which his property might be appropriated. For 52 years this court has not deviated from that holding. Two constitutional amendments, Numbers 49 and 62, and various statutes, have been enacted in reliance on that holding. I would not overrule Snodgrass, supra.