12-824. Franchise to interurban railway or electric company; certain provisions declared void; notice; petition; election; certificate of convenience and necessity.
12-824
12-824. Franchise to interurban railway or electric company; certain
provisions declared void; notice;
petition; election; certificate of convenience and necessity.
(a) All incorporated cities in the state of Kansas into or through which any
interurban railroad may have been built, or into or through
which any interurban railroad may propose to build a line of interurban
railroad, or into or through which any corporation operating a system for
the transmission of electric current between two or more incorporated
cities in the state shall have been built, or into or through which
any such corporation may propose to build its transmission lines, are
hereby authorized and empowered upon such terms and conditions, as any such
city may by ordinance prescribe, to grant franchises to such interurban
railroad companies and transmission corporations for any public utility
purposes for which they are or may be incorporated.
Any such franchise shall be granted for a period
not greater than the time for which the charter under which such company or
corporation is then operating continues to run but in no case to
exceed 35 years. Such franchise shall not be granted
until notice of the proposition to grant the same has been given for 20
days by publication in some newspaper in general circulation in such city.
If within such twenty-day
period, 10% of the qualified electors petition
such city authorities to submit the same to a vote of the electors of the
city, such city authorities shall submit the franchise proposition to a
vote of the people before such franchise is granted. No such
election shall be held
until a certificate is procured from the corporation commission that public
necessity and convenience requires the construction of such improvements or
the furnishing of such public services. Nothing in this
act shall be construed as applying to telephone and telegraph companies.
(b) On and after the effective date of this act, any provision for
compensation or consideration, included in a
franchise granted pursuant to this section which is established on the
basis of compensation or consideration paid by an interurban railroad
company or transmission corporation under another franchise, is hereby
declared to be contrary to the public policy of this state and shall be
void and unenforceable. Any such
provision, included in a franchise granted pursuant to this section and in
force on the effective date of this act which requires payments to the city
by an interurban railroad company or transmission corporation to increase
by virtue of the compensation or consideration required to be paid under a
franchise granted by another city to the company's or corporation's
predecessor in interest, is hereby declared to be contrary to the public
policy of this state and shall be void and unenforceable.
History: L. 1915, ch. 282, § 1; L. 1921, ch. 94, § 1;
R.S. 1923, § 12-824; L. 1985, ch. 71, § 1; July 1.