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The form of referendum petitions, the circulating thereof and securing of signatures thereto, and the form of the ballot to be used in such referendum election shall be in accordance with and determined by the general laws governing the referendum on acts of the General Assembly of the State.
IMPROVEMENTS AND ASSESSMENTS
The Council shall have power by ordinance or resolution to provide for the construction, reconstruction, repair and maintenance by contract or directly by the employment of labor, of all things in the nature of local improvements, and to provide for the payment of any part of the cost of any such improvement by levying and collecting special assessments upon abutting, adjacent and contiguous or other specially benefitted property. The amount assessed against the property specially benefitted to pay for such local improvements shall not exceed the amount of benefits accruing to such property. Any cost for such improvement in excess of any sum assessed therefor shall be paid by the City.
Special assessments upon property deemed benefitted by a public improvement shall be by any one of the following methods:
(a) By a percentage of the tax value of the property assessed;
(b) In proportion to the benefits which may result from the improvement;
(c) By the foot frontage of the property bounding or abutting upon the improvement.
When it is deemed necessary to make a public improvement to be paid for in whole or in part by special assessment, the Council shall declare the necessity therefor by resolution, and such resolution shall include the method of assessment, the mode of payment, and the number of annual installments. Such resolution shall thereupon be certified to the Director of Finance and Public Record, who shall thereupon proceed to make an assessment report, in accordance with the method of assessment provided in the resolution, which report shall be filed with the Council, and shall show the lots and lands assessed, and the amount of the assessments as to each, and the number of installments not exceeding ten (10), in which such assessment shall be paid.
Upon the filing of such report the Director of Finance and Public Record shall cause written notice to be served upon the owner or owners or the agent or agents of the owner or owners of each lot or parcel of land to be assessed, or upon the persons in whose names the same may be assessed for taxation upon the tax duplicate, said notice to be served as is provided for service of summons in civil action; and as to all nonresidents and persons who cannot be found, a publication of such notice shall be made at least once in a newspaper of general circulation in the City. Said notice shall contain a statement of the character of the proposed improvement, the fact that the assessment report has been filed with the Council, the rate of such assessments, the number of installments, and shall set a time and place when complaints and claims will be heard before the Board of Revision of Assessments.
At the time of the passage of said resolution of necessity hereinbefore provided there shall be on file in the office of the Mayor, plans, specifications, estimates and profiles of the proposed improvement, giving all information necessary; and such plans, specifications, estimates and profiles shall be open to the inspection of all interested persons.
The Board of Revision of Assessments shall consist of the Mayor, the Director of Law and the Director of Finance and Public Record. The Mayor shall be the President of the Board and the Director of Finance and Public Record shall be the Secretary thereof. It shall meet at such times and places as is provided by its rules and shall hear all claims and objections as to the character of all improvements to be paid for in part or in whole by special assessments, the necessity therefor, and the equity of the assessments as provided in the assessment report. A majority of those constituting the Board of Revision of Assessments shall have power to determine all complaints and objections submitted to it, and as to each improvement the Board shall, after such hearing amend, equalize, and adjust the assessment report, and shall report its findings as to the necessity for the improvements and any amendments it directs in the assessments to the Council.
An owner of a lot or of land bounding and abutting upon a proposed improvement claiming that he will sustain damage by reason of the improvement shall present such claim to the Board of Revision of Assessments within two weeks after the service of notice of the completion of the publication hereinbefore provided. Such claim shall be in writing and shall set forth the amount of damages claimed, with a general description of the property with respect to which it is claimed the damage will accrue. Any owner who fails so to do shall be deemed to have waived such damages and shall be barred from filing a claim or receiving damages therefor. This provision shall apply to all damages which will obviously result from the improvement, but shall not deprive the owner of his right to recover damages arising without his fault, from acts of the City or of its agents. The Board of Revision of Assessments shall report to the Council all such claims for damages filed with it.
Whenever the Board of Revision of Assessments shall have made its final report to the Council as to any improvement, the Council, if it determines that the improvement shall proceed, shall pass an ordinance levying the assessment as reported by the Board of Revision of Assessments and directing that the improvement proceed.
In such ordinance it shall be sufficient to describe the lots and lands abutting upon the improvement and to be assessed therefor, as all the lots and lands bounding and abutting upon such improvement between and including the termini of the improvement; and in describing lands which do not abut it shall be sufficient to describe the lots by their appropriate lot numbers, and the lands by metes and bounds; and this rule of description shall apply in all proceedings in which lots and lands are to be charged with special assessments.
Special assessments shall be payable by the owners of the property assessed at the time stipulated in the ordinance, and shall be a lien from the date of the assessment upon the respective lots and parcels of land assessed enforceable in the manner provided by general law.
At the time of the passage of the ordinance determining to proceed with the improvement as hereinbefore provided, the Council shall determine whether the claims for damages so filed shall be judicially inquired into before commencing or after the completion of the proposed improvement. If it decides that the damages shall be assessed before commencing the improvement, the Director of Law shall then make a written application to a court of competent jurisdiction for inquiry into, and assessment of such damages, which inquiry and assessment shall be confined to such claims.
When the Council determines to assess the damages after the completion of the improvement for which a claim for damages has been filed as hereinbefore provided, the Director of Law shall within ten (10) days after the completion of the improvement make written application as hereinbefore provided in the case of the ascertainment of damages before the improvement was made, and the same proceedings shall be had.
No person who claims damages arising from any cause shall commence a suit therefor against the City until he shall have filed a claim for such damages with the Director of Finance and Public Record and sixty (60) days shall have elapsed thereafter, to enable the City to take such steps as it may deem proper to settle or adjust the claim; but this provision shall not apply to an application for an injunction or other proceeding to which it may be necessary for such applicant to resort in case of urgent necessity.
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