81 N.J.L. 207 | N.J. | 1911
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The question involved is the validity of resolutions for the issue of bonds under chapter 13, the acts of 1909 (Pamph. L., p. 27), and of contracts for the erection of a pier. The first objection relates to the constitutionality of the statute. In view, of the decisions with reference to a similar statute, this question is now hardly debatable. Sea-side Really Co. v. Atlantic City, 45 Vroom 178; affirmed, 47 Id. 819; Fishblatt v. Atlantic City, 51 Id. 269; Crossan v. Ventnor City, Id. 511. The prosecutor finds two difficulties in the way of construing the act so as to apply to the present ease—first, that the city does not own the land proposed to be improved; second, that it is only authorized to improve lands owned by it contiguous to the beach or ocean front, and the beach or ocean front contiguous thereto.. The first difficulty is supposed to arise from the fact that although the city has at present a title to the land under a deed with apt words to convey a fee-simple, that title is liable to be diverted hereafter in case the boardwalk along the ocean is moved further oceanward as the land may extend by accretion. This contingency does not prevent the city from oAvning the fee; it is what is called a qualified fee; but the proprietor of a
If, however, the act of 1909 is constitutional and applicable, to the situation, the prosecutors insist that the proceedings for the issue of bonds are defective—first, because the procedure under the act of 1897, under which Ventnor is governed, was not followed; second, because the resolution of November 2d, 1910, is indefinite and uncertain, in that it fails to specify the improvement intended to be made; third, because the resolution of December 21st, 1910, for additional bonds, proposes to improve the public parks, while the land in question, which alone is specified in the November resolution, is outside the park. The objection that the procedure under the act of 1897 was not followed cannot prevail. The act of 1.909 provided for its own pipcedure; it expressly fixed a limit of $150,000 to the amount of bonds to he issued, without regard to the ratables as in the act of 1897, and by its fourth section declared that the powers conferred should be deemed lo he in addition to and independent of all powers conferred by any other laws, and not subject to any limitation contained in such other laws. The objection that the resolution of November 2d, 1910, is indefinite and uncertain, in that it fails to specify the improvement intended to be made, cannot prevail since it rests on a misconception of the language of the resoln
We think the objections to the resolutions providing for an issue of bonds are not well taken and those resolutions are affirmed.
The bonds were 'not sold, and from the action taken at the time of the resolution of December 21st, it would seem as if they might not be salable, since the lowest bidders for the work agreed with the city on that day that in the event that the city