California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from Palmer v. West Kern County Water Dist., 13 Cal.Rptr. 834, 193 Cal.App.2d 41 (Cal. App. 1961):
No provision in the Act under consideration requires the District to pay the expenses incurred in its formation; and nowhere in this Act is any authority expressly conferred upon the District's board of directors to ratify any contract made by the organizers of the District to pay for services rendered to effect formation. The only statutory provisions which refer to the subject in any manner are those heretofore related and, at the most, these provisions carry only an implied authority to reimburse the organizers for the expenses incurred. If existent, such implied authority would not require reimbursement but merely constitutes a grant of permission to reimburse. In this regard it is noteworthy that the County Water District Act of 1913 (Stats.1913, ch. 592, p. 1049) contained no provision respecting the payment of formation expenses; that an attempted payment of such expenses was held to be ultra vires (Biggart v. Lewis, supra, 183 Cal. 660, 192 P. 437); that the act thereafter was amended by adding a provision thereto which authorized the District to 'cause taxes to be
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