H. E. Bailey and 23 other plaintiffs filed suit against the City of Atlanta, opposing the potential installation of sidewalks on their street. The plaintiffs specifically sought injunctive relief, a declaratory judgment, and damages. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment, and the trial court granted summary judgment to the City and denied the plaintiffs’ motion. The plaintiffs appeal, and we affirm, for reasons that follow. We review a trial court’s ruling on a motion for summary judgment de novo, giving the nonmovant the benefit of all reasonable doubt and construing the evidence, and all inferences and conclusions that arise therefrom, most favorably to the nonmovant.1 So viewed, the record demonstrates that in 2000, the City raised money for certain capital projects —including, inter alia, the construction of sidewalks —through the sale of General Obligation Public Improvement Bonds also known as “Quality of Life Bonds,” which were approved by city voters in a referendum. The City Council later voted to allocate the Quality of Life bond funds equally to each of 12 council districts, resulting in the allocation of $9.4 million to Council District 8, which includes Blackland Road the street where the plaintiffs live. After the City Council appropriated the funds, the individual council offices decided how to spend the money in their districts “in conjunction with” the Department of Planning & Development, the Department of Public Works, and “requests from various civic associations”; the City Council was not required to approve the individual expenditures. In 2005, the council office for District Eight began discussions with constituents regarding the possibility of constructing sidewalks on Blackland Road using the funds from the Quality of Life Bonds. The idea was met with both support and opposition.
On September 23, 2005, the plaintiffs filed suit against the City, alleging that the sidewalk installation project “will bulldoze some driveways, destroy some custom mailboxes, destroy some old hardwood trees, destroy various sprinkler systems, destroy landscape plants, and devalue and harm other property, by installing sidewalks on a street whose neighbors oppose them by 52. . . .” The plaintiffs specifically alleged that the City’s actions in permitting the individual council members to use their portion of the Quality of Life Bond funds at their discretion, without approval of the City Council, was illegal and constituted improper ultra vires activity.2 The plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment and an injunction prohibiting the installation of sidewalks on Blackland Road and the City’s practice of allocating funds to individual council districts to be spent at the discretion of the council member without approval of the City Council. In the alternative, the plaintiffs sought damages resulting from the installation of the sidewalks and damages “to the taxpayers of Atlanta equal to slush funds and unapproved spending under the Quality of Life Bond and other funds, requiring each City Council district member to repay all funds so spent within the discretion of each individual City Council district member.” The plaintiffs also asserted an inverse condemnation claim based on the damage to their property, alleging that the damage deprived them of property without due process.
