lature of West Virginia, passed February twentieth, eighteen hundred and ninety-nine, be amended and reenacted so that said section shall read as follows:

Sec. 9. The said judge shall for his services receive eighteen hundred dollars per annum, until the first day of May, nineteen hundred and eight, and thereafter twenty-five hundred dollars per annum, to be paid out of the county treasury in the same manner as the salary of the said judge is now being paid; and he shall be disqualified from practicing law in all courts of this state during his continuance in office.

(House Bill No. 20.)

CHAPTER 8.

AN ACT to provide for grading, paving, sewering and otherwise improving the streets and alleys of municipal corporations and the method of paying for the same.

[Passed February 26, 1908. In effect from passage.

SEC.

1. Cities, towns and villages with a population of one thousand or more, authorized to issue bonds for the purpose of paving, etc.; cites, towns and villages authorized to sell bonds; not to be sold below par value; shall be payable in not to exceed ten years; interest not to exceed six per centum; shall be governed by restrictions of the constitution of this state; assessments to be applied to the liquidation of bonds; if any balance, it shall be turned into city treasury; debt shall not exceed five per centum of value of taxable property; all other debts not to exceed two and one half per centum on the value of the taxable property; chapter fifty-one of the acts of nineteen hundred and five applicable; to provide for the collection of a direct annual tax; all assessments, etc., to be applied to the annual

SEC.

3.

Approved March 6, 1908.]

or

way company; city. town or village to pay for squares at intersection of streets; cost of sidewalks to be borne by adjacent property owners in proportion to their frontage; city engineer to measure, and calculate assessment upon each land owner, and certify the same to council other body or bodies; council or other body to examine assessments and certify same; notice to be given by publication of assessment; notice to be published in two newspapers for two weeks; owners to have the right to appear before council or body or bodies to have corrections in assessments made; council or body or bodies to have power to make corrections; assessments to be certified and entered of record; assessments to be certified to treasurer for collection; assessments to be certified to county court; how assessments to be paid; assessments to bear interest; rate of interest; assessments unpaid to bear additional interest; liens to have priority over all other liens, except; treasurer to deliver release of assessments when paid in full; auditors duty in such case. Construction of sewers; how assessments paid; engineers duty as to construction of sewers; amount to be paid by each lot owner, notice of assessments to

SEC.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:

Sec. 1. All municipal corporations incorporated by special act or otherwise for the government of cities, town and villages in this state, and having a population of one thousand or more, are hereby author

ized to issue their bonds for the purpose of providing for grading, paving, curbing and otherwise improving the streets and alleys of said municipal corporation, or constructing sewers for the proper drainage of such corporations, in anticipation of special assessments to be made upon the property abutting upon the streets and alleys so improved, or property so sewered or drained, and such bonds may be in such an amount as shall be sufficient to pay the entire estimated cost and expense of said improvements for which such special assess, ments are levied; said cities, towns and villages are also authorized to sell said bonds: provided, that the price for which they are sold shall not be below the par value of said bonds; said bonds shall be payable in not to exceed ten years from the date of the issue thereof and shall bear interest at not to exceed six per centum per annum, payable annually; and in the issuance and sale of said bonds, the municipality shall be governed by all the restrictions and limitations of the constitution of this state and the restrictions and limitations of the statute of this state with respect to the issuance and sale of other bonds so far as they are not in conflict with the provisions of this chapter; and the assessments as paid and provided for in this chapter shall be applied to the liquidation of said bonds and the interest thereon; and if by reason of the penalties collected with the delinquent assessments there be any balance after the payment of said bonds and all accrued interest and costs, the said balance shall be turned into the city treasury to the credit of the interest and sinking fund of the city, town or village.

Provided, that no such corporation shall by sale or issue of such bonds cause the aggregate of its debt of every kind whatsoever to exceed five per centum on the value of taxable property therein: and provided, further, that nothing herein contained shall be construed as authorizing any such municipal corporation to become indebted in any other manner or for any other purpose, to an amount including the existing indebtedness in the aggregate exceeding two and one half per centum on the value of the taxable property therein (as provided in chapter fifty-one on the acts of nineteen hundred and five) except for the purpose of grading, paving, sewering and otherwise improving the streets and alleys of said municipal corporation as provided for in this act; nor shall they make such issue and sale without at the same time providing for the collection of a direct annual tax sufficient to pay annually the interest on such debt and the principal thereof within and not exceeding ten years.

All of the assessments, interest and penalties thereon, collected from the abutting property owners on account of grading, paving, sewering or otherwise improving the streets and alleys of any such city, town or village, under the provisions of this chapter, shall annually be applied to the annual tax required to pay the interest on such debt and such principal within and not exceeding ten years; and in the event that the assessments, interest and penalties so collected do not amount to a sum sufficient to pay annually the interest on such debt and the principal thereof within and not exceeding ten years, then the council of any city, town or village shall collect so much of said levy as will pay annually the interest on such debt and the principal thereof within and not exceeding ten years.

Sec. 2. Whenever the common council or other body or bodies having such matter in charge under the charter of any such municipal corporation shall deem it expedient to cause any street or alley in said city, town or village, or portion thereof to be paved, curbed or macadamized or otherwise improved in a permanent manner, upon the petition in writing of persons owning the greater amount of the frontage of the lots abutting on both sides of any street or alley, between any two cross streets or between a cross street and an alley, it shall order the work done in the following manner and upon the following terms: The contract for such paving or other improvements shall after due advertisement in which the council or other body or bodies having such matters in charge under the charter shall reserve the right to reject any and all bids, be let, if let to the lowest responsible bidder. The contractor shall look only to the city, town or village for the payment of the work, and in no sense to the abutting land owners. The total cost of curbing, grading and paving or otherwise improving any such street or alley, with the exception in the case of a street occupied by street car tracks or other railways of the distance between the rails and two additional feet outside of each rail, which portion shall be borne and paid entirely by the street car or other railway company operating such street or other railway (unless otherwise provided by the franchises of such street car or other railway company granted previous to the passage of this act) shall be borne by the owners of land abutting upon said street, alley or portion thereof, according to the following plan, that is to say: Payment is to be made by all land owners on either side of such portion of a street or block so paved or improved, in such portion of the total cost, less the portion, if any, chargeable to such street or other rail

way company, as the frontage in feet of his land so abutting bears to the total frontage of all land so abutting on such street, alley or portion thereof so paved or improved as aforesaid. The cost of such paving or improvement chargeable to the abutting owners is not to include any portion or amount paid for paving of squares at intersection of streets which shall in all cases be borne and paid by the city, town or village. It is especially provided however that where in any case the charter of any city, town or village granted by the act of the legislature heretofore passed or amended by any subsequent act provides that the cost or any part thereof of paving the streets (exclusive of intersections) shall be paid by the abutting property owners, then there shall be assessed against said abutting property owners their proportionate part of the cost of said street paving upon the basis fixed in said charter or special act amendatory thereof: provided, that in the case of sidewalks the cost shall be borne by the adjacent property owners in proportion to their frontage.

When the paving of any street, or alley, or portion thereof, shall have been let to contract, and the work done as herein before provided, it shall be the duty of the engineer of such city, town or village to cause the several frontages abutting thereon to be measured and to calculate the assessment upon each and every land owner so abutting and to certify the same to the council or other body or bodies having such matters in charge under the charter, showing the proper amount to be determined as provided in the foregoing plan. It shall be the duty of the council or other body or bodies having such matters in charge under the charter to examine and compare such assessment, amounts and names so certified to it, and thereupon said council, or other body or bodies having such matters in charge under the charter, shall give notice by publication for two successive weeks in some newspaper published in said city, town or village, that an assessment under this section is about to be laid against the abutting property for paving or improvements done on said streets or alleys, describing the location of such paving or improvements, and any owner or owners thereof shall have the right to appear before said council, or body or bodies having such matters in charge under the charter within two weeks from the first publication thereof and move said council to correct any apportionment or assessment excessive or improperly made as charged, which corrections said council or other body or bodies having such matters in charge under the charter, shall have the power to make, and if found to be correct or when corrected by the