finding an ordinance’s provision changing employees’ status invalid in these circumstances
How later courts described this case
- finding an ordinance’s provision changing employees’ status invalid in these circumstances
- St. Louis County Charter
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
DONNELLY, Judge
(dissenting).
The Charter of St. Louis County requires that an amendment to the Charter must be approved by the people. Section 18 of Article III of the Charter states unequivocally that an ordinance providing for the submission of any proposal to the people is an emergency ordinance and that such an ordinance shall require the affirmative vote of not less than five members of the County Council. I find no ambiguity. The principal opinion undertakes to make a determination as to whether Ordinances 3345 and 3346 are in fact “emergency” measures. I would not do this. I feel the people of St. Louis County determined the question when they adopted Section 18 of Article III as part of their Charter. If we had a case before us where the County Council had sought to enact an ordinance under Subsection (6) of Section 18, the Council (not the people) would have declared the emergency and would have engaged in a legislative act. In that situation, the Asotsky case, cited in the principal opinion, would rule, and the question would be for judicial determina *170 tion. This is not the situation in the instant case.
I respectfully dissent.