Pressman v. Mayor of Baltimore

Marbury, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is a taxpayer’s suit to enjoin the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, and some of its officers, from spending $125,000, part of the proceeds of a loan, for street signs and block number plates. The defendants demurred, the Circuit Court of Baltimore City sustained the demurrer without leave to amend, and dismissed the bill. From this action, the complainant appealed.

By Chapter 132 of the Acts of 1951, the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore were authorized to issue certificates of indebtedness not exceeding $500,000, the proceeds thereof to be used “for the acquisition and installation of traffic control signals and signs and for ¹⁰⁹ the purchase of such equipment and facilities as may be necessary therefor and for doing all things necessary in connection therewith or pertaining thereto.” The preamble of the act recites that traffic hazards at street intersections in the city are constantly increasing, that it is particularly hazardous for children going to and from school to cross many of these intersections, that the demands for proper traffic control signals and signs are increasing much more rapidly than is the installation of such signs, and, under the present procedures, it will be many years before an adequate number of traffic control signals and signs will be erected, and that it is very urgent that such signals and signs be erected as promptly as possible in order to protect the public generally. The act was an emergency act, authorizing the Mayor and City Council by an ordinance or ordinances to authorize the issuance of the certificates of indebtedness. This was done under the provisions of Article XI, Sec. 7, of the State Constitution, which prohibits the creation of any debt by the City, unless such debt is authorized by an act of the General Assembly, and by an ordinance of the Mayor and City Council submitted to the legal voters of the City of Baltimore, and approved by a majority of the votes cast at such election. This section was first considered by this court in Baltimore v. Gill, 31 Md. 375 , and is discussed in the case of Baltimore v. Hofrichter, 178 Md. 91, 97-98 , 11 A. 2d 375 .

In pursuance of the authority given by Chapter 132, an ordinance (No. 1607) was passed on April 4, 1951, and was approved by the voters at the election on May 8, 1951. The ordinance used the identical language contained in the statute, and the loan was therefore approved by the voters for the purposes mentioned in the statute. When the Ordinance of Estimates for the year 1952 was passed, it provided that the Department of Public Works should expend out of the proceeds of the sale of the certificates of indebtedness thus authorized, for traffic control signals $125,000, and “for street signs ¹¹⁰ $125,000”. The appellant contends that the expenditure of $125,000 for street signs would be in violation of the enabling act, and of Ordinance 1607, and asks that the defendants be enjoined from so expending this amount of money out of the proceeds of the loan, and for a declaratory decree stating that the allocation of $125,000 in the Ordinance of Estimates for street signs is null and void.

The City Solicitor in his argument, although not in his brief, admitted that the word “signs” in the enabling act and in the ordinance, must be interpreted as meaning “traffic control signs”. We think this is a necessary construction, clearly indicated by the purpose of the enabling act as set out in the preamble. The question before us, therefore, is whether the street signs and block number plates, proposed to be installed by the City, are traffic control signs within the meaning of the enabling act and of the ordinance submitted to the voters. The City contends that it should be allowed a broad discretion in determining what are traffic control signs.

It suggests that there is a basis for including within those words street signs and block number plates, because they help the movement of traffic, both pedestrian and vehicular, by enabling travelers to see where they are on the street, and to locate their destinations more readily than would otherwise be the case. We find this interpretation too ingenious. Street signs and block number plates are not within the ordinary contemplation of anyone as traffic control signs. The mere fact that the City is growing, and that many new street signs and block number plates are needed, does not justify placing 'a strained construction upon words which we think the voters must not have placed upon them when they approved the ordinance.

If it is necessary, on account of the number of these signs which have to be replaced or newly erected, to finance them otherwise than through the use of the proceeds of the tax rate, then the proper procedure for the City is to get an enabling act from the Legislature specifically ¹¹¹ setting out this purpose, and to pass an ordinance submitting to the voters the question whether this should be accomplished as a capital expenditure. We do not think the Legislature intended, nor do we think that the voters could have thought that the Legislature and the City intended such an expenditure by the wording of Chapter 132 of the Acts of 1951 as repeated in Ordinance 1607. The City relies upon the case of Baltimore v. Williams, 129 Md. 290 , 99 A. 362 . In that case, the enabling act authorized the issuance of $50,000,000 of stock for the establishment of “a comprehensive system for the