TITLE 333. ACT 2332. MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS. An act to validate the organization and incorporation of municipal cor porations. [Approved March 20, 1905. Stats. 1905, p. 400.] §1. All municipal corporations, the organization and incorporation of which have been authenticated by an order of a board of supervisors in this state, declaring the same incorporated as municipal corporations of the classes to which such corporations may respectively belong, and a certified copy of which order has been filed by such board of supervisors in the office of the secretary of state, showing such copy of said order to have been filed in said office, and which corporations thereafter have acted in the form and manner of municipal corporations under the provisions of "An act to provide for the organization, incorporation, and government of municipal corporations," approved March thirteenth, eighteen hundred and eighty-three, and the amendments thereto, are hereby declared to be and to have been municipal corporations from the date of filing the certified copy of said order of the board of supervisors with the secretary of state; and all the acts of the said municipal corporations heretofore performed according to the act aforesaid, are hereby validated, and declared as legal. See Acts 2354, 2355, post. ACT 2333. An act to provide for the lighting of public streets, lanes, alleys, courts and places in municipalities, and for the assessment of the costs and expenses thereof upon the property benefited thereby. [Approved March 21, 1905. Stats. 1905, p. 564.] §1. Whenever the public interest or convenience may require, the city council of any municipality in the state shall have full power and authority to order poles, posts, wires, pipes, conduits and lamps, or any of said appliances, or any other suitable or necessary appliances, to be installed in and along the whole or any part of any public street, lane, alley, court or place in such municipality, for the purpose of lighting the same; also to order appliances in and along the same, installed under this act, or otherwise installed and owned or controlled by such municipality, to be maintained; and also to order gas, electric current, or other illuminating agent, to be furnished for such lighting: in the manner and under the proceedings hereinafter described. § 2. Before ordering any improvement to be made, which is authorized by section 1 of this act, the city council shall adopt a resolution declaring its intention to do so, briefly describing the proposed improvement, which may include the whole or any part of one or more streets, lanes, alleys, courts or places, and specifying the exterior boundaries of the district to be benefited by said improvement and to be assessed to pay the cost and expenses thereof, and to be known as the assessment district. Said proposed improvement may include any or all of the different kinds of work mentioned in section 1 of this act; provided, however, that the maintenance of appliances or the furnishing of gas, electric current or other illuminating agent, shall be for a period stated in the The city council resolution of intention, but not exceeding two years. shall also, in the same resolution, refer the proposed improvement to the city engineer, if there be one, and if not, to some competent person employed by the municipality for the purpose and named in said resolu tion, and direct him to make and file with the clerk of the city council a report in writing presenting the following: 1. Plans and specifications for the work required in order to make said improvements; 2. An estimate of the cost of said improvement and of the incidental expenses in connection therewith; 3. A diagram showing the district above referred to, and also the boundaries and dimensions of the respective subdivisions of the land within said district, each of which subdivisions shall be given a separate number in red ink upon said diagram. 4. A proposed assessment of the total amount of the costs and expenses of the proposed improvement upon the several subdivisions of land in said district in proportion to the estimated benefits to be received by such subdivisions, respectively, from said improvement. Said assessment shall refer to such subdivisions upon said diagram by the respective red ink numbers thereof, and shall show the names of the owners, if known, otherwise designating them as unknown. No mistake in the name of the owner of any parcel of land shall affect the validity of the assessment thereon. In any municipality having a board of public works created by its charter, or by law, the proposed improvement shall be referred to said board, and the report provided for herein shall be made by said board. § 3. Upon the filing of the report provided for in section 2 of this act, the said clerk shall present the same to the city council for consideration, and said council may modify the same in any respect, and, in case of any such modification, the report as modified shall stand as the report for the purpose of all subsequent proceedings. Thereafter the council, by resolution, shall appoint a time and place for hearing protests in relation to the proposed improvement, which time shall not be less than twenty days from the date of the passage of said resolution, and shall direct the clerk of the city council to give notice of said hearing, and shall designate the newspaper in which such notice shall be published. § 4. After the passage of the resolution mentioned in section 3 of this act, the clerk of said city council shall cause to be conspicuously posted along all streets and parts of streets within the assessment district described in the resolution of intention, at not more than three hundred feet in distance apart, notices (not less than three in all), of the passage of said resolution of intention and of the filing of said report. Said notices shall be headed "Notice of Local Improvement," in letters not less than one inch in length, shall be in legible characters, and shall state the fact and date of the passage of said resolution of intention and of the filing of said report, and the date set for the hear ing of said protests, and briefly describe the improvement proposed, and refer to said resolution and report further particulars. He shall also cause a notice similar in substance to be published for a period of two days in a daily newspaper, published and circulated in said municipality, and designated by said city council for that purpose, or if there is no daily newspaper in said municipality, then by two successive insertions in a weekly paper, so published, circulated and designated. Said notices must be posted and published, as above provided, at least ten days before the date set for the hearing of said protests. § 5. Any person interested, objecting to said improvement, or to the extent of the assessment district, or to the proposed assessment provided for in section 2 of this act, may file a written protest with the clerk of the city council at or before the time set for the hearing referred to in section 3 hereof. The clerk shall indorse on every such protest the date of its reception by him, and at the time appointed for the hear ing above provided for, shall present to said city council all protests so filed with him. If such protests are against said improvement and said city council finds that the same are signed by the owners of a majority of the frontage of the property fronting on streets or parts of streets within said assessment district, all further proceedings under said resolu tion of intention shall be barred and no new resolution of intention for the same improvement shall be passed within six months after the presentation of such protests to the city council, unless the owners of a majority of the frontage of the property fronting on streets or parts of streets within said assessment district shall in the meantime petition therefor. If such protests are against the improvement and the council finds that they are not signed by the owners of a majority of the frontage of the property fronting on streets or parts of streets within the assessment district, or if such protests are against the extent of the assessment district, the council shall hear said protests at the time appointed therefor, as above provided, or at any time to which the hearing thereof may be adjourned, and pass upon the same, and its decision shall be final and conclusive, and if such protests are sustained the proceedings shall be abandoned, but may be renewed at any time, and if such protests are denied, the proposed assessment shall be confirmed. If such protests are against the proposed assessment, the council shall hear said protests at the time appointed therefor as above provided, or at any time to which the hearing thereof may be adjourned, and may confirm, modify or cor rect said proposed assessment. WieWhen, upon the hearing, said proposed assessment is confirmed, modified or corrected, or in case no protests are filed, the report provided for in section 2 hereof shall be adopted as a whole, with any modifications or corrections that have been made therein, and the city council shall by resolution, order said proposed improvement to be made, and declare its action upon said report and assessment, which resolution shall be final and conclusive on all persons, and the assessment shall be thereby levied upon the respective subdivisions of land in the assessment district. § 6. The validity of an assessment levied under this act shall not be contested in any action or proceeding unless the same is commenced within thirty days after the time said assessment is levied, and any appeal from a final judgment in such an action or proceeding must be perfected within thirty days after the entry of such judgment. §7. Upon the passage of the resolution provided for in section 5 hereof, the clerk of said city council shall transmit to the tax collector of the municipality, the diagram and assessment provided for in subdivisions 3 and 4 of section 2 hereof, and any modifications or corrections thereof made by said city council. § 8. Upon the receipt of the diagram and assessment referred to in the last preceding section, the tax collector of the municipality shall record the same in a substantial book, to be kept for that purpose, in his office, and shall thereupon fix a day not less than twenty, nor more than thirty, days from the date of the receipt by him of said diagram and assessment after which all assessments unpaid shall become delinquent and ten per cent shall be added to the amount thereof, and shall also fix a day for the sale of the various parcels of land within said district upon which the assessments are unpaid, which said date shall be not less than fifty days nor more than sixty days from the date of the receipt by him of said diagram and assessment. §9. Notice of the sale of property upon which the said assessments are delinquent shall be given by said tax collector by posting and publication in the manner now provided by the general laws of the state of California, for giving notice of the sale of real estate upon execution, provided, however, that the descriptions of the various parcels of land need not be set out at length, but only by the respective numbers of the same as they appear upon the assessment and diagram, which shall be properly referred to in said notice, and said descriptions shall all be contained in one notice. At the time and place fixed for the sale of said property, the tax collector shall separately sell the respective parcels of land within said district, the assessments against which have not been paid, or so much of each parcel as shall be necessary to realize the amount assessed against said parcel, said ten per cent penalty for delinquency, and its proportion of the expenses of sale, in the order of their numbers upon said diagram. At said sale the municipality may be a purchaser. § 10. The tax collector shall issue for each sale an original and a duplicate certificate of sale, referring to the proceedings, describing the parcel sold, and giving the name of the purchaser and the amount for which said parcel was sold. The original certificate he shall deliver to the purchaser, and the duplicate he shall keep on file in his office in the form of a stub in the certificate-book. § 11. At any time before the expiration of one year from the date of the sale, any property sold under the provisions of the preceding sections may be redeemed by the payment to the tax collector of the amount for which the property was sold, with an additional penalty of twenty-five per cent of said amount. Said redemption money shall be paid by the tax collector to the person holding the original certificate of sale upon his delivering up the same and receipting for the amount received from the tax collector therefor. Upon redemption of any parcel of land the tax collector shall enter the fact and date of such redemption upon the duplicate certificate of sale thereof. § 12. If the property is sold, and is not redeemed within said period of one year from the date of the sale, the tax collector shall execute to the person named in the original certificate, or to his assignee, a deed of the property described in said certificate, which said deed shall refer in general terms to the proceedings under which the same is issued, and shall contain a description of the property. Such deed shall convey title in fee to said property, and the grantee is immediately, upon the receipt thereof, entitled to possession of the property described therein. § 13. The funds collected by the tax collector under the proceedings herein provided for, either upon voluntary payment, or as the result of sales, shall be paid by said tax collector, as fast as collected, to the treasurer of said municipality, who shall place the same in a special fund designated by the number or name of the proceeding, and payments shall be made out of said special fund only for the purposes provided for in this act. To expedite the making of any such improvement, the city council may at any time transfer into said special fund, out of any money in the general fund, such sums as it may deem necessary, and the sums so transferred shall be deemed a loan to such special fund and shall be repaid out of the proceeds of the assessments provided for in this act. §14. At any time after the funds for the work, or any part of the work, shall be in the hands of said treasurer, the city council may let the contract or contracts for such work or the respective parts thereof. Every such contract shall be let to the lowest responsible bidder, after notice published by two insertions in some newspaper published in such municipality and designated by the city council for that purpose, or if there be no such newspaper, then by such posting as the city council may provide. Every bid shall be accompanied by a certified check, amounting to ten per cent of the bid, payable to the order of the clerk of said city council, and the same shall be forfeited to the municipality in case the bidder depositing the same does not, within ten days after written notice that the contract has been awarded to him, enter into a contract with the municipality for the work, the faithful performance of which shall be |