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No action shall be maintained against the City of St. Albans for damages for a personal injury, death or injury to property alleged to have been sustained by reason of the negligence of the City or of any officer, agent or employee thereof, unless a written verified statement of the nature of the claim and of the time and place at which such injury is alleged to have occurred, or death caused, shall have been filed with the City Clerk within thirty days after the cause of action shall have accrued. The cause of action shall be deemed to have accrued at the date of the damage to property or the sustaining of the injury; except, that where death results therefrom, the time for the personal representative to give notice shall run from the date of death. An action at law for damages for personal injuries or death or injury to property, shall not be commenced until the expiration of thirty days after the filing of the notice as provided ln this section.
Officers of the City shall be immune from suit for any acts done in their official capacity, to the extent provided for in the statutes and laws of the State of West Virginia, as interpreted by the decisions of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.
(1) Streets, alleys, sidewalks, other public ways, and storm and sanitary sewers may be built, constructed and improved in the City and liens levied therefor, pursuant to the provisions of the Revised Code of West Virginia, 1931, Chapter 8, Articles 8 and 9, as amended at the date of the adoption of this Charter; provided, however, that subsequent amendments to the said designated portions of the Code and to other statutes pertaining to such improvements, which may be hereafter enacted by the legislature of the State of West Virginia, shall not be binding upon the City until and unless such amendments, or any part thereof, are accepted by the Council of the City by ordinance duly adopted.
(2) In addition to the other methods prescribed in the said Revised Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, any street or alley in the City, or portion thereof, may be curbed, or recurbed, paved or repaved, macadamized, or remacadamized, sewered or resewered, or otherwise improved or reimproved, including the paving or repaving of sidewalks, in a permanent manner, whenever it shall be deemed expedient by the Council, upon the petition in writing of a majority of the property owners, owning frontage abutting on both sides of any such street or alley, between any two cross streets, or between a cross street and an alley; provided, that the said majority of the property owners also own at least forty percent of the frontage of the lots abutting upon the said street or portion thereof to be improved. The work shall be done and the assessment laid in the same manner and upon the same terms as are provided in the said Revised Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended.
(3) No cost of repaving or resewering any street or alley or reconstruction of a sidewalk thereon, in the City, shall be charged and assessed to abutting property owners, whether the original work be done before or after the adoption of this Charter, unless such repaving, resewering or reconstruction of a sidewalk be approved in writing before the work is begun, by the owners of more than eighty percent of the frontage abutting on both sides of such street or alley, between any two cross streets, or between a cross street and an alley,
(4) No suit in equity or action at law shall be instituted to enforce a lien for public improvements, levied pursuant to the terms hereof, more than thirteen years from the date of the adoption of the final ordinance, levying such assessment, unless such assessment shall be payable over a period of more than thirteen years, in which event, no such suit or action shall be brought more than one year after the due date of the last installment of such assessment. After such period has expired, no suit in equity or action at law or other proceeding shall be instituted in the name of the City or by any holder or owner of the certificates evidencing any such lien, to collect the same.
(5) Where a sewer assessment has been levied against any property, not on the certificate plan, and such assessment has not been paid in full, no building permit shall be issued for any improvement to such property until such assessment shall be paid in full, although such assessment may otherwise be barred by a statute of limitations or by a limitation on actions contained in this Charter.
(6) The lien of all assessments for the paving or repaving of streets, alleys and sidewalks, and the laying or relaying of sewers and all other improvements within the City, shall, from and after the date of the assessment thereof by the Council, constitute a continuing tax lien against the abutting property assessed with such improvements, superior to all other liens except taxes due to the State of West Virginia and its political subdivisions.
(7) Any assessment for public improvements, whether evidenced by certificates or not, shall be payable to the Clerk. The said Clerk shall collect the amount due, together with accrued interest to the date of payment, and shall issue, sign, acknowledge and deliver an apt and proper release of the lien of such assessment. Where certificates have been issued for such improvements, the said Clerk shall retain such sums as may be paid to him in satisfaction of such liens until demand is made upon by him by the owners and holders of the said certificates for such sums, whereupon the said Clerk shall pay such sums to such certificate owners and holders, upon delivery of the said certificates to the said Clerk for cancellation and delivery to the respective property owners. The said Clerk may release any lien for public improvements upon presentation of satisfactory evidence of payment.
The provisions of this Charter shall be construed to be severable, and if any part or section of this Charter is declared null, void, invalid or unconstitutional, by any court of competent jurisdiction, such decision shall not affect any remaining portion of this Charter; such remaining portion shall be in full force and effect as if the part or section so declared null, void, invalid or unconstitutional had never been a part of this Charter.
CODIFIED ORDINANCES OF ST. ALBANS