209 P.2d 910 | Colo. | 1949
THE charter of the City and County of Denver requires that no loans shall be created or bonds issued unless the question of creating them shall be submitted to a vote of the electors qualified therefor.
By virtue of appropriate ordinance at an election duly held on May 20, 1947, the electors voted favorably upon the question, "Denver General Hospital: Shall the city council of the City and County of Denver * * * issue * * * bonds of the City and County of Denver in the principal sum of $500,000, or so much thereof as may *382 be necessary, to be used for the purpose of improving, extending, and equipping the Denver General Hospital. * * *?" The bonds issued pursuant thereto were sold and the proceeds deposited with the treasurer in an account denominated "1948 Hospital Bond Account." Thereafter an agreement with an architect for plans, specifications and supervision in connection with the construction of "a municipal hospital building" was executed in behalf of the city and registered by the city auditor. However, in fact, as admitted by defendants in error, the building as thereafter designed and now under construction was planned and intended, not for hospital purposes, but solely for use of and occupancy by the Denver Bureau of Public Welfare. The city auditor upon learning of the nature and purpose of the building withheld further funds for its construction on the ground that the submission clause under which the bond issue was approved did not permit the proceeds of the bonds to be used for such purpose, and the city by its proper officers brought this action to determine whether the funds arising from sale of said bonds may be so used. The essential allegations of the complaint were admitted by answer, with the additional undisputed allegation that the plans of the building erected are essentially plans for an office building, rather than a building for the treatment of sick or injured persons, or any activity in connection with such treatment at the Denver General Hospital. The trial court held that the erecting of the building to house the Denver Bureau of Public Welfare was a proper use of the funds derived from sale of the bonds, and such decision is here for review.
There is no conflict in the evidence submitted. The charter of the City and County of Denver provides for a Department and Manager of Health and Charity. Thereunder is a Bureau of Health and Hospitals and a Bureau of Public Welfare, each under a separate director. The functions of the Bureau of Health and Hospitals are the supervision and operation of hospital and *383 other institutional services provided for medical and surgical treatment of indigents of the community, and the provision and supervision of preventive medical services. These services embrace every field belonging to a general hospital, including a five-hundred bed hospital, a training school for nurses and administrative offices, and are carried on in a group of some fifteen buildings occupying two and a half blocks generally known as the Denver General Hospital.
The functions of the Bureau of Public Welfare are administration of the old age pension program, aid to dependent children, general assistance, child welfare services, day care of children of working mothers, aid to the blind and tuberculosis patients. None of these functions includes any medical or surgical treatments; the last two named include referral of indigent cases needing treatment, but there is no evidence that such referrals need be or are to the Denver General Hospital. The bureau administers federal, state, and local funds in the amount of approximately $8,000,000 a year, and its housing needs include offices for interviewing those seeking relief, space for some eighty clerical and stenographic employees and supervisory personnel, for filing cases, and for administrative and case working staff, in addition to an auditorium, cafeteria, library and heating plant.
At the time of the bond election with which we are here concerned, all buildings included in the Denver General Hospital group were used for customary hospital purposes and other services performed by the Bureau of Health and Hospitals and necessary administrative and incidental services in connection therewith, except that one of the smaller buildings and a portion of one floor of another building, together having a floor space of 22,000 square feet, were used as administrative offices of the Bureau of Public Welfare. The inadequacy of these offices and the need for adequate housing for this essential and humanitarian work is not disputed. The *384 building proposed, and in fact now under construction from the proceeds of the sale of the bonds authorized by the electors, is located on a half block owned by the city across the street from the buildings and grounds of the Denver General Hospital.
[1] The question of creating a bond issue necessarily includes not only the amount and terms of the bonds, but also the purpose for which they are to be used. This has repeatedly been declared by the courts and text writers. "To obtain the authority of the electors to incur an indebtedness, or to enter into a contract otherwise prohibited, the matter must be submitted to them in such specific language as to apprise the voters of the full purpose and the exact and particular thing upon which they are called upon to vote and decide." O' NeilEngineering Co. v. Town of Ryan,
[2] The requirements, as declared by the courts, may be summarized as follows: (1) The question submitted to the voters must be specific and apprise them of the particular purpose for which the bonds are proposed to be issued; (2) the purpose so submitted must not be misleading; (3) the proceeds of the bonds must be spent for the purpose for which they were voted; and (4) if in fact and in good faith the money is spent for the purpose for which it was voted, the judgment and discretion as to its expenditure must be that of the officials charged therewith and not that of the court.
In the situation before us, the question presented to the electors was apparently specific, and did apprise the voters of a particular purpose for which the bonds were to be issued. They were asked to authorize bonds "for the purpose of improving, extending and equipping Denver General Hospital." The words "improving," "extending," and "equipping" are specific, and necessarily refer to something already in existence. Denver General Hospital was an existing institution.
A challenge that the purpose of the bond issue was *386 misleading would ordinarily go to the validity of the bonds, while a challenge that the proceeds were to be spent for a purpose other than that for which they were voted would go to the validity of the expenditure. Where, as in the case before us, the question was apparently specific and apprised the voters of a particular and proper purpose, and the bonds, as here, have been issued and purchased in good faith, the bonds are valid in the hands of the purchaser and the challenge can go only to the purpose of the expenditure.
[3] The word "hospital" in its ordinary usage means an institution for the medical or surgical care of the sick, the injured or the infirm. Such, in substance, is the definition of the word in the dictionaries and in the adjudicated cases. Hull Hospital v. Wheeler,
It is urged in behalf of the city, and was found by the trial court, that the term "Denver General Hospital" as used in the submission clause of the bond issue is a generic term, and therefore included the purpose of a building for welfare. If we follow this resort to technical terminology, we can only conclude that health and welfare, under our municipal system of organization, are different genera, and Denver General Hospital is but a species of the genus health. Use of the name of a species of one genus could hardly be so generic as to include another genus altogether. Other than in its technical meaning, the word "generic" is defined as, "General (opposed to specific or special)," Oxford English Dictionary, and "opposed to specific," Webster's New International Dictionary. To say that the use of the term was generic, *387 then, is but another way of saying it was not specific, and therefore in violation of the first requirement for validity of a bond issue.
Had the attempted use of the proceeds been for housing of the nursing school or for a new nurses' home, it might have been urged, whether or not successfully, that such use was incidental to the city's hospital operations and essentially connected with, and a part of, the functions of the Denver General Hospital, but here the use proposed is not even connected with the hospital functions as an incidental use. It is an entirely distinct use — a use for welfare, not for health; for financial, not for medical or surgical assistance; a use operated by an entirely separate bureau of the city, separately budgeted, separately managed and separately financed.
There is nothing in the evidence even to suggest that the word "hospital" as included in the term "Denver General Hospital" had other than its usual meaning to the voters who approved the bond issue, or that the term "Denver General Hospital" was used or generally understood "generically" so as to refer to or include welfare administration. In the testimony of the director of the Bureau of Health and Hospitals, he referred to "patients admitted to the Denver General Hospital" who were known to be "clients of the Bureau of Public Welfare," and testified that he considered the primary function of the Denver General Hospital was to render medical care to the poor and destitute. A study of general assistance and hospitalization costs, made by the Denver Bureau of Public Welfare and received in evidence, refers to the flow of information between the Denver General Hospital and the Denver Bureau of Public Welfare and also to the cooperation of the Denver General Hospital with the Bureau of Public Welfare in making the study. The record contains correspondence of the advisory board of the Bureau of Public Welfare with reference to procuring inclusion of a bond issue for the benefit of that bureau among the projects for which *388 bond issues were to be sought at the election. This correspondence repeatedly refers to housing the Bureau of Public Welfare, to the public welfare matter, to the item for public welfare, to a building for the Bureau of Public Welfare, to the housing needs of the Denver Bureau, to plans for a welfare building, and to adequate facilities for housing the Denver Bureau of Public Welfare, without a single mention of identity or association with the Denver General Hospital. In the publicity given the project as contained in the record, reference was made to the needs of the Denver Bureau of Public Welfare and the statement made, "It was first housed in a wing of Denver General Hospital. Later it expanded into the old nurses' home at 650 Cherokee Street." The correspondence refers to a new building for the Department of Health and Charity for the use of the Denver Bureau of Public Welfare, and to the employees who are being housed in the old nurses' building and in one floor and the basement of a wing of the Denver General Hospital. It is said that the "construction of this administration building will in fact benefit the Denver General Hospital, because it will release 22,000 square feet of space in the hospital buildings which is now occupied by the Denver Bureau of Public Welfare." The public understanding that the term "Denver General Hospital" did not mean welfare administration is strikingly shown by the minutes of a meeting of the advisory board of the Bureau of Public Welfare, as follows: "Mr. Davis remarked that because our project is on the bond issue as improvements to Denver General Hospital and no mention is made of the Denver Bureau of Public Welfare, it is hard to get our story across." From all this evidence it plainly appears that even to those most intimately acquainted and concerned, the term "Denver General Hospital" was used with reference to the institution for medical and surgical care as distinguished from the Bureau of Public Welfare and its services.
It is urged that welfare activities and hospital activities *389 have long been associated together, and that welfare activities as well as hospital activities have been carried on in the same or adjoining buildings for many years. However, association does not result in identity either of function or of name. The departments of fire and police under the Denver charter operate together under the Manager of Safety and Excise, and might have a combined building which would contain both police headquarters and fire station, but it could hardly be contended from that fact that the proceeds of a bond issue voted for the building of fire station could be used for the construction of a building for police administration.
[4] It is urged that the public was fully informed as to the intent to use the proceeds of the bond issue for housing the Bureau of Public Welfare. We have held that in considering the intent of a statute adopted as an initiated measure, it is proper to resort to arguments submitted to voters at the time it was adopted. Armstrongv. Ford Motor Co.,
[5] We held in Denver v. Hayes,
In Schultz v. Police Jury, Tangipahoa Parish,
[6] Finally it is urged that the city has a reasonable discretion in use of the proceeds of the bonds. This is true, but a use for a purpose other than that authorized by the voters is not within the range of reasonable discretion. Counsel cite Champion Iron Co. v. City ofSouth Omaha,
[7, 8] We must keep in mind that public officials are servants of the people; that constitutional provisions and charters are created to mark the limits of their authority in the conduct of public business; that it is the duty of public officials to observe such restraints, and the duty of the courts to enforce them. There is no valid reason why the purpose for which bonds are to be used should not be specifically stated on the ballots. When the purpose is not so stated, the voters are denied their right of choice. When it is so stated, the use of the proceeds for any other purpose is a violation of the city charter and a wrongful diversion of the funds, because such use has *394 not been authorized by the people. Regardless of our own desires and regardless of the seriousness of the situation, we must hold that authority to issue bonds for improving the Denver General Hospital is not authority to issue bonds for construction of an administration building to house the Bureau of Public Welfare. To hold otherwise would be to violate the provisions of the city charter and set a dangerous precedent for vague, ambiguous, colored and confusing statements in submitting future bond issues, and the deceit of the people thereby.
The judgment of the trial court is reversed and the case remanded with instructions to enter judgment consistent with the views expressed herein.
MR. JUSTICE MOORE not participating.