Court Opinion

ID: 9719719
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:01:33.829089+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:09.496211
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING AND DISSENTING OPINION BY
Judge PELLEGRINI.
This case has its origin in the passage of Act 22 which, among other things, changed who appointed a majority of the Board of the Philadelphia Parking Authority (Parking Authority) from the Mayor of the City of Philadelphia (City) to various state officials acting through the Governor. Affirming this court, our Supreme Court in Philadelphia v. Schweiker, 579 Pa. 591, 858 A.2d 75 (2004), held that change did not violate the home rule provisions of the Pennsylvania Constitution because authorities were “agencies of the Commonwealth” and the General Assembly could have its way with them. What is at issue in this case, however, is whether the General Assembly, by passing Act 9, can have its way with a home rule municipality by vesting in an unelected Parking Authority Board discretion regarding on street parking laws of the City of Philadelphia and how those laws should be enforced. Because Act 9 violates the Pennsylvania Constitution, I respectfully dissent.1
*936While the Schweiker ease was pending before the Supreme Court, Act 82 was passed by the General Assembly relative to the Parking Authority Law.3 This required the City to continue using the Parking Authority for on-street parking enforcement to transfer to the School District of the City of Philadelphia (School District) the maximum portion of on-street parking revenues available by the Parking Authority. While Act 8 awaited the Governor’s signature, on February 9, 2004, the General Assembly further amended the Parking Authority Law by enacting Act 9, 53 Pa.C.S. § 5508.1(q.l)[l], which authorized the PPA to enforce and administer a system of on-street parking in the City until March 31, 2014. Act 9 repealed the above-mentioned provisions of Act 8 and required the Parking Authority to carry out these responsibilities consistent with the terms of an Agreement of Cooperation between the Parking Authority and the City that were due to expire on January 1, 2004. Act 9 also provided that the Parking Authority would transfer a specified amount of revenue from the operation of the system of on-street parking regulation to the City, and further required the Parking Authority to transfer the excess of that amount to the School District. Unlike Schweiker, then, which involved the transfer of the appointment of authority over an authority held to be a commonwealth agency, Act 9 involved placing burdens on the City and the exercise of its police power.
The City and the Mayor then filed a petition for review with this Court raising statutory and constitutional challenges to Act 9, including several counts which allege that Act 9 violates various provisions of the Constitution regarding home rule as well as alleging that it constitutes special legislation. Regarding Act 9, the Parking Authority and the Governor filed preliminary objections alleging, among other things, that its actions did not violate the Pennsylvania Constitution.
The majority grants those preliminary objections and dismisses the home rule counts, reasoning that when the City delegated the responsibility, admittedly local, municipal on-street parking functions to the Authority, an agency of the Commonwealth, an entity engaged exclusively in proprietary functions, ie., financing and managing of various revenue-producing projects that are not considered to be part of core governmental activities and are not within the ambit of protections afforded to home rule municipalities under the Pennsylvania Constitution. It states:
The threshold question for this Court is very similar, i.e., whether the responsibility to service on-street parking activities is a core municipal function 4 that is governed exclusively by home rule. We think not.
The Parking Authority Law expressly authorized the Authority to engage in managing the revenue-producing project of on-street parking in Philadelphia. Since at least 1982, then, this part of on-street parking has been understood to be a proprietary function, as opposed to *937the kind of municipal function governed exclusively by the exercise of home rule powers. As the Supreme Court observed in Schweiker, it is “difficult to argue that exercising control over an authority which performs these [parking] functions is nonetheless included within such [home rule] powers.” Schweiker, 579 Pa. at 610, 858 A.2d at 87. Following this same logic, Schweiker requires us to conclude that the on-street parking duties assigned to the Authority are not municipal functions governed by home rule.
Act 9 did not negate the City’s control of a purely municipal function. The on-street parking activities governed by the Parking Authority Law proprietary activities that fall outside the reach of home rule power, as held in Schweiker. The Supreme Court determined in Schweiker that “Act 22 limits the City’s home rule rights in a manner that is consistent with the Pennsylvania Constitution.” Id. at 612, 858 A.2d at 88. Thus, the City’s Charter must give way where there is a conflict between it and amendments to the Parking Authority Law. (Internal footnotes omitted.)
(Slip opinion at 12-13.)
From the above, even the majority does not dispute that when a city performs on-street parking regulation and enforcement, it is a governmental function. However, once that function is turned over to a parking authority, the majority finds that function is somehow transformed into a proprietary one because a parking authority can only carry out proprietary functions. Through this legerdemain, the majority concludes that because a home rule city is prohibited from engaging in proprietary functions unless authorized by the state, the City can no longer engage in parking enforcement because it is now a proprietary function, and it cannot engage in on-street parking regulation and enforcement unless the General Assembly gives it permission which, in this case, was taken away by Act 9. Accordingly, because the City can no longer engage in on-street parking regulation, the majority holds that Act 9 does not impinge on the City’s home rule.
What this holding ignores is that what constitutes a governmental function is not determined by the entity that carries out that function, but by what comprises the basic nature of the function. (No one would claim if a war was fought with mercenaries that makes a war a proprietary function.) Control of the public right-of-way, i.e., to lay out, pave, maintain, control and police its streets and sidewalks is not only a governmental function but “the” governmental function performed by any municipality. On-street parking regulation is one part of the governmental municipal function included as part of its police power to control traffic. Love v. Borough of Stroudsburg, 528 Pa. 320, 597 A.2d 1137 (1991); Laubach v. City of Easton, 347 Pa. 542, 32 A.2d 881 (1943).
The General Assembly has authorized all municipalities to enforce the municipal function over on-street parking regulation by entering into an agreement with parking authorities to enforce on-street parking. 53 Pa.C.S. § 5505(21) provides:
Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in this chapter, if authorized by resolution or ordinance of the legislative body of the parent municipality, to administer, supervise and enforce an efficient system of on-street parking regulation. This paragraph includes the power:
(i) to conduct research and maintain data related to on-street parking activities;
(ii) to issue parking tickets for illegally parked vehicles;
*938(iii) to collect on behalf of a municipality rates and other charges, including fines and penalties, for uncontested on-street parking violations;
(iv) to boot or tow a vehicle which is illegally parked or the owner of which is delinquent in payment of previously issued parking tickets; and
(v) to own or lease personal property used in connection with the exercise of any power provided in this paragraph.
Under this provision, though, the ultimate control must remain with the municipality over what are the on-street parking regulations to insure that the parking authority only carries out proprietary functions, the “details of administration,” that the municipality has charged it to enforce and, just as important, whether it desires to enter into the arrangement at all.
In Act 9, by adding 53 Pa.C.S. § 5508.1(q.l)(l), which applies only to first-class cities, the General Assembly took away control from the elected officials of the City and its citizens over on-street parking regulation and enforcement, a purely governmental municipal function by vesting within the Parking Authority the power to control that type of regulation. Act 9 did so by requiring Parking Authority approval and consent over ordinances enacted by the Council of the City dealing with on-street parking and agreements to carry out on-street parking enforcement requiring councilmanie resolutions unless agreed to by an unelected Parking Authority Board. This provision provides:
(1) Notwithstanding any contrary provision of Title 75 (relating to vehicles) or this chapter, the authority shall enforce and administer a system of on-street parking regulation in a city of the first class on behalf of the city. The system of on-street parking regulation shall function and be administered pursuant to section 5505(d)(21) (relating to purposes and powers) and the city’s ordinances as in effect January 1, 2004, as implemented pursuant to an agreement between the authority and the city as in effect on January 1, 2004. In administering the system of on-street parking regulation, the authority shall have the same powers and be subject to the same restrictions as were in effect on January 1, 2004, under the ordinances and agreement. The procedures to be followed in operating the system of on-street parking regulation include the budgetary procedures and the allocation of responsibility between the authority and the city existing on January 1, 2004, under the ordinances and agreement. The authority and the city, by mutual consent, may modify the system of on-street parking regulation to the extent permitted by applicable law. The authority and city are authorized to do all acts and things necessary or convenient to implement the provisions of this subsection. (Emphasis added.)
By requiring “mutual consent” over changes in on-street parking regulations, Act 9 unconstitutionally vests absolute veto in an unelected Parking Authority Board giving it the power both to shape and forestall on-site parking legislation over the wishes of the City’s citizens who act through its elected representatives on City Council. By usurping the discretion of municipal elected officials on how they intend to enforce local parking laws, which, without cavil, is a municipal function, Act 9 violates Article 3, § 31 of the Pennsylvania Constitution which reads in relevant part:
The General Assembly shall not delegate to any special commission, private corporation or association, any power to make, supervise or interfere with any municipal improvement, money, property or effects, whether held in trust or otherwise, or to levy taxes or perform *939any municipal function whatever. (Emphasis added.)
In interpreting this provision, our Supreme Court has said, “[i]f the delegation of power is to make the law, which involves a discretion of what the law shall be, then the power is nondelegable. If the conferred authority is the power or discretion to execute the law already determined and circumscribed, then the delegation is unobjectionable.” Erie Firefighters Local No. 293 of Intern. Association of Firefighters v. Gardner, 406 Pa. 395, 396, 178 A.2d 691, 694 (adopting the opinion of Judge Laub, 26 Pa. D. & C. 2d 327 (1962)). See also Wilson v. Philadelphia School District, 328 Pa. 225, 195 A. 90 (1937). By giving the Parking Authority what is essentially the power to control the actions of the City to carry out its police power over on-site parking, Act 9 does not give the power to the Parking Authority to carry out the “details of administration,” but essentially the power to make law over what the on-street parking regulations are and require a contract to remain in place that does not have legislative approval.5
By violating Article 3, § 31 of the Pennsylvania Constitution in this fashion, Act 9 necessarily violates Article 9, § 2 of the Pennsylvania Constitution which provides:
Municipalities shall have the right and power to frame and adopt home rule charters.A municipality which has a home rule charter may exercise any power or perform any function not denied by this Constitution, by its home rule charter or by the General Assembly at any time. (Emphasis added.)
While the General Assembly can “deny” to a home rule municipality the power to perform any “function,” Act 9 does not “deny” the City the power to perform a “function;” instead, it prescribes the way the City has to carry out a function, something not permitted by this provision of the Constitution.
The majority avoids dealing with the language of this provision by magically *940changing on-street parking regulation from a governmental function to a proprietary one. It then reasons because the City cannot engage in a proprietary business under Section 18 of the Home Rule Act, 53 P.S. § 13133,6 which provides that “no city shall engage in any proprietary or private business except as authorized by the General Assembly” then on-street parking is not a municipal function, and because it is not a municipal function, home rule cannot be implicated. Even assuming that on-street parking regulation can ever be a proprietary function, this reasoning is flawed for several reasons.
First, the City or, for that matter, the Parking Authority, is not engaging in a proprietary business within the meaning of Section 18 of the Home Rule Act when either of them administers or regulates on-street parking. That provision only forbids home rule municipalities from operating a “proprietary or private business,” say, a professional baseball team or own a hotel that is available to the general public. The regulation of on-street parking, with the issuing of tickets or towing of cars, cannot in any way be said to be a proprietary or private business because it is carried out for the public good to regulate traffic.
Second, just because a function is a proprietary one does not mean that it is not a municipal function. “[A] municipal corporation carries out both “governmental” and “proprietary” functions.” City of Philadelphia v. Schweiker, 579 Pa. 591, 858 A.2d 75, 87 (Pa.2004). Examples of proprietary functions that a municipality carries out are maintaining parks and playgrounds. DeSimone v. City of Philadelphia, 380 Pa. 137, 110 A.2d 431 (1955), and the distribution of water, Helz v. City of Pittsburgh, 387 Pa. 169, 127 A.2d 89 (1956). Even if on-street parking is a proprietary function, nonetheless, it would still be a municipal function, Article 9, § 2 of the Pennsylvania Constitution prohibits the General Assembly from directing or interfering how the municipality can carry out that function. Otherwise, home rule means nothing.
Because no matter how you characterize on-street parking — governmental or proprietary — it is still a municipal function with which Act 9 has unconstitutionally interfered.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
Judge SMITH-RIBNER joins in this dissenting opinion.

. In Schweiker, our Supreme Court also held that there was no violation of specific statutory pledges because rights granted under a statute are not contractual in nature ... and no constitutional rights are implicated if they are changed or eliminated. There is no violation of Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution regarding the single subject rule because the two subjects — municipal authorities and parking authorities — -were two subjects that were inextricably intertwined. Similar chai-*936lenges have been raised in this case, and I join with the majority as to the resolution of those issues.

.75 Pa.C.S. § 6109(g), repealed by Section 3 of the Act of February 10, 2004, P.L. 69, No. 9 (Act 2004-9).

. Act of June 5, 1947, P.L. 458, formerly 53 P.S. §§ 341-356, repealed by Act of June 19, 2001, P.L. 287, No. 22 @ 3. The Law is now found at 53 Pa.C.S. §§ 5501-5517.

. No where is the term "core municipal function” used in either Article 3, § 31 or Article 9, § 2 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. See, infra.

. In footnote 23, the majority makes several points. First, it points out that the City did file a count pointing out that Act 9 violates Article III, Section 31. That is the one point on which we agree. The analysis of that provision is to show that the majority’s analysis leads to an unconstitutional result.
In attempting to refute the dissent’s analysis, the majority then goes on to state:
We read the language in Act 9 found offensive by the dissent to require the Authority to consult the City about the aspects of on-street parking administration listed in Section 5505(d)(21)(i)-(v). It may be that City Council may not pass ordinances that conflict with Act 9, but this does not implicate Article III, Section 31. This is a simple matter of preemption on one narrow subject, i.e., "on-street parking regulation.” 53 Pa.C.S. § 5505(d)(21). In any case, the Authority has not attempted to veto an act of City Council. The mere possibility of that event does not give rise to a cause of action. Stated otherwise, the claim is not ripe for our review because it is not presented here.
The majority confuses the concept of "preemption” with the constitutional prohibition against "unlawful delegation.” Act 9 takes no powers away from the City; it still has the power to enact on-street parking regulations. What has changed is that it only has the power to do so with the consent of the non-elected Parking Authority Board.
The majority attempts to get over the constitutional infirmity of Act 9 by attempting to redefine "consent,” to mean "consult.” When you have to obtain "consent,” that means the party who has to give it has veto power which is a far cry from consult, seeking advice, and then doing what you want to do. Because the unelected Parking Authority Board has "veto” power over a governmental function, it is an unconstitutional delegation of a power invested in elected local governmental officials.
The majority then goes on to state that it is not ripe for review. Act 9 takes away governmental powers from the Ci1y on how they are going to conduct their affairs. How can it not be ripe for review and how is the City not aggrieved?

. Act of April 21, 1949, P.L. 665, as amended, 53 P.S. § 13133.