112 S.E. 418 | N.C. | 1922
Civil action, heard on return to preliminary restraining order. The action, instituted by plaintiffs, citizens and residents of Swannanoa Consolidated School District, in said county, seeking to restrain defendants from making a bond issue of $50,000 of said district, pursuant to an election of the voters, and under Public-Local Laws 1915, ch. 722. There was judgment dissolving the restraining order, and plaintiffs excepted and appealed.
Public-Local Laws 1915, ch. 722, authorizes the board of education to consolidate any school district of the county, for the purpose of acquiring sites, building and repairing schoolhouses, etc., and it is provided in the act that on petition filed by as many as one-fourth of the voters of any school district, endorsed by the board of education, the county commissioners may call an election on the question of issuing bonds, and if the measure is favored by a majority of the qualified voters in the district, may issue and sell the bonds to the amount designated with interest, not to exceed 6 per cent, the proceeds to be applied to the purposes specified, etc. It is also enacted that a tax may be annually levied to meet the interest and provide a sinking fund to pay said bonds at maturity. Pursuant to the statute and proceedings under it, the board of education consolidated four existing school districts of the county into the Swannanoa Consolidated School District, and on 3 October, 1921, a petition, signed by more than one-fourth of the *685
consolidated district properly endorsed, was filed for the proposed bond issue of $50,000, an election was ordered, the measure approved by the voters and the bonds prepared and will be sold unless restrained, etc. The provisions and requirements of the act have in all things been substantially complied with, and we find no legal reason suggested against the validity of the proposed bond issue. It is objected, first, that the petition was signed by the voters before the order for (640) consolidating the four districts had been formally entered. It is recognized that the petition in a matter of this kind is jurisdictional, and the requirements concerning it must be substantially complied with. Key v. Board of Education,
Affirmed. *686
Cited: Bd. of Ed. v. Bray,
(641)