130 Iowa 603 | Iowa | 1905
Section 2 of the act provides that “ jurisdiction and control for park purposes and for the purposes herein specified are hereby vested in the board of park commissioners of the city of Des.Moines over the said river and the bed and banks thereof within the limits specified in section one of this act; and said board shall have power to use such portion of its funds as may be available to improve and utilize the same for the public use and pleasure, and to exercise in respect thereto the general powers as to parks conferred by section 850 to and inclusive of section 858 of the Code. Said board shall have power to straighten, cut away, or fill in said river banks and to preserve the same by walls, piling, levees, or other-wise; to excavate, remove sandbars or other obstructions from and otherwise improve the bed of said river so as to make it available for boating, skating and other sports.”
The same section' also confers authority to bridge the river, and, upon conditions, to construct a dam.below the present dam. Section 3 of the act gives the board of park commissioners power “ to construct and regulate the use of wharves, landing places, bath houses, boat houses, and other suitable structures,” and, further provides that, “ if said board shall by the construction of a dam at public expense below the present dam hold back and maintain a bed of water suitable for boating, skating, and other sports, it shall •have exclusive jurisdiction over such water between such dams, and the ice formed thereon for park purposes and may prohibit the taking of ice therefrom by riparian owners or other persons. . . . The improvement and use of said river for boating, skating, and other similar sports shall be deemed park purposes within the meaning of this act and the general law.”
The appellant’s action is founded on the powers conferred upon it by the act under consideration, and the de
It is suggested that if the act is constitutional it is against public policy, and is therefore void. A legislative act, if constitutional, declares in terms the policy of the state and is final so far as the court is concerned. Kuhn v. Kuhn, 125 Iowa, 449.
The demurrer should have been overruled, and the judgment is therefore reversed.'