stock of corporations, is hereby amended so as to read as follows: increase or 359. Every corporation may increase or diminish its May capital stock at a meeting of the stockholders called for that diminish purpose by the Directors, as follows: stock. of notice. 1. Notice of the time and place of the meeting, stating its Publication object, and the amount to which it is proposed to increase or diminish the capital stock, and the number of shares into which the capital stock is to be divided, must be given by publication thereof in a newspaper of general circulation, published in the county, or city and county, in which the principal office of the corporation is located, for at least sixty days, and posting a copy thereof for the same period in a conspicuous place in said office. If the publication be in a daily newspaper there shall be not less than six insertions per week, and if in a weekly newspaper there shall be not less than nine insertions. Pess 2. The capital stock must in no case be diminished to an Limitations. amount less than the indebtedness of the corporation or the estimated cost of the works which it may be the purpose of the corporation to construct, nor shall the capital stock be increased without the consent at said meeting of the persons holding at least two thirds in value of the stock of the corporation. and Secre 3. If at said meeting it be determined to increase or dimin- Chairman ish the capital stock, as the case may be, a certificate must tary to be signed by the Chairman and Secretary of the meeting and certify. a majority of the Directors of the corporation, showing a compliance with the requirements of this section in calling and giving notice of the meeting, the amount of increase or diminution of the capital stock and number of shares, if any change has been made, the names of persons consenting to the action, and amount of stock held by them. The certificate must be acknowledged by the persons making it, before an officer competent to take acknowledgment of deeds. certificate. 4. The certificate must be filed in the office of the County Filing of Clerk, where the original articles of incorporation were filed, and a certified copy thereof in the office of the Secretary of State, and thereupon the capital stock shall become increased or diminished as in the certificate set forth composed of the number of shares therein specified. ers may 5. If the stockholders, at a meeting called to increase the Stockhold capital stock of a corporation, direct any special disposition direct. to be made of the stock to be issued in excess of the original capital stock, the Directors shall dispose of the same as so directed. SEC. 2. This Act shall take effect from its passage. No public work on streets ex in provided. CHAPTER XXIV. An Act to provide for the improvement of streets, lanes, alleys, courts, places, and sidewalks, and the construction of sewers within municipalities. [Approved March 6, 1883.] The People of the State of California, represented in Senate and PART I. SECTION 1. No public work or improvement of any description whatsoever shall be done or made within any cept as here- municipality organized and existing for municipal purposes, or hereafter organized, in, upon, or about the streets thereof, the cost or expense of which is made chargeable or may be assessed upon private property by special assessment, except as in this Act provided. City Council empowered to order. Method of notification to owners. SEC. 2. Whenever the public interest or convenience may require, the City Council is hereby authorized and empowered to order the whole or any portion of the streets, sidewalks, lanes, alleys, courts, or places of any such city graded or regraded to the official grade, planked or replanked, paved or repaved, macadamized or remacadamized, graveled or regraveled, piled or repiled, capped or recapped, and to order sidewalks, sewers, manholes, culverts, curbing, and crosswalks to be constructed therein, and to order any other work to be done which shall be necessary to make and complete the whole or any portion of said streets, sidewalks, lanes, alleys, courts, or places. SEC. 3. Before ordering any work done, or improvement made, which is authorized by section two of this Act, the City Council shall pass a resolution declaring its intention. so to do, describing the work and specifying the exterior boundaries of the district of lands to be affected or benefited by said work or improvement, and to be assessed to pay the costs and expenses thereof. The Street Superintendent shall thereupon cause to be conspicuously posted along the line of said contemplated work or improvement, at not more than three hundred feet in distance apart, but not less than three in all, notices of the passage of said resolutions. Said notice shall be headed "Notice of street work," in letters of not less than one inch in length, and shall, in legible characters, state the fact of passage of the resolution, its date, and, briefly, the work or improvement proposed, and refer to the resolution for further particulars. He shall also cause a notice, similar in substance, to be published for a period of fifteen days in one or more daily newspapers published and circulated in said city, and designated by said City Council, or by two successive insertions in a weekly newspaper so published, circulated, and designated. The owners of one half or more of the frontage of the property fronting on said proposed work or improve. may make ment may make a written objection to the same within How owners ten days after the expiration of the time of the publication objection. of said notice, which objection shall be delivered to the Clerk of the City Council, who shall indorse thereon the date of its reception by him, and such objection, so delivered and indorsed, shall be a bar for six months to the doing of said work or making said improvement, except that when the work or improvement proposed to be done is the construction of sewers, manholes, culverts, crosswalks, and sidewalks, the Clerk shall lay said objection before said City Council, which shall, at its next meeting, fix a time for hearing said objection, not less than one week thereafter. The City Clerk shall thereupon notify the persons making such objection, by depositing a notice thereof in the Post Office of said city, postage prepaid, addressed to each objector. At the time specified, said City Council shall hear the objections urged, and pass upon the same, and its decision shall be final and conclusive; provided, that when any street or highway shall have been sewered its entire length, and not more than two blocks of said street remain ungraded, said City Council may order the grading, curbing, and macadamizing or graveling of that part of said street, or highway, so remaining ungraded, not exceeding two blocks; and said work of grading, curbing, macadamizing, graveling, culverting, crosswalking. and sidewalking said street or highway for said two blocks and less, shall not be stayed or prevented by any written or other objection, unless such Council shall deem proper; prorided, also, that if one half or more, in width or in length, of any street lying and being between two main street crossings, order work, has been already improved as aforesaid, said Council may standing order the remainder improved, notwithstanding such objec- objections. tions of property owners whose property is affected or benefited thereby, and to be assessed to pay the cost and expense thereof. Objections to the extent of the district of lands to be affected or benefited by said work or improvement, and to be assessed to pay the costs and expenses thereof, may be made by interested parties within the time allowed for other objections; but the City Council may, in its discretion, overrule all such objections, and if sustained after hearing, to be had as in this section above provided in case of other objections, all proceedings shall be stopped; but proceedings may be immediately again commenced by giving the notice of intention to do said work or make said improvement; if such objections are overruled by the City Council, the proceedings shall continue the same as if such objection had not been made. At the expiration of the time prescribed during which objection to said work or improvement may be made, if no objection shall have been made, or if an objection shall have been made, and said Council, after hearing, shall have overruled the same, the City Council shall be deemed to have acquired jurisdiction to order any of the work to be done, or improvements to be made, which is authorized by section two of this Act. Before passing any resolution for the construction of said improvements, plans, specifications, and careful estimates of the costs and expenses When City notwith Publication of notice. to be accompanied by check. tion of thereof shall be furnished to said City Council by the City Engineer of such city. SEC. 4. Before giving out any contracts by the City Council for doing any work authorized by section two of this Act, the City Council shall cause notice to be published for at least five days in one or more daily newspapers published and circulated in such city, or by at least one insertion in a weekly or semi-weekly newspaper, so published and circulated, and to be conspicuously posted for five days on or near the Council-room door of said Council, inviting sealed proposals for the work contemplated. All proposals offered shall be accompanied by a check payable to the order of the Mayor, certified by a responsible bank, in an amount equal to at least ten per cent of the total amount named in the estimate of the City Engineer, and shall be delivered to the Clerk of said City Council; and said Council shall, in open session, open, examine, and publicly declare the same; Examina provided, however, that no proposal shall be considered unless proposals. accompanied by such check satisfactory to the Council; and thereafter, but not later than its next regular meeting, said Council may reject the bid of any party who has been delinquent and unfaithful in any former contract with the municipality, and shall reject all bids other than the lowest regular bid of any responsible bidder, and shall thereupon return to the proper parties the respective checks corresponding to such bids so rejected. But the check accompanying such lowest regular proposal or bid shall be held by the City Treasurer of such city, and said proposal or bid itself shall be held by said Council, to be disposed of as hereinafter provided. Upon ascertaining the amount specified in such lowest regular and responsible bid, said Council shall compare the same with the estimate of the cost and expenses theretofore furnished by said City Engineer for said work so bid upon; and if such sum specified in such bid shall be less than or greater than the estimate of said City Engineer, then said City Council shall refer said bid and estimate to said City Engineer for revision, and if, upon revision, said estimate shall correspond in amount with amount specified in such bid, such revised estimate, increased by the incidental expenses of such proposed work, which incidental expenses shall be determined by said Council, shall be and become the estimated costs and expenses of Council may said proposed work; provided, however, that in all cases the said Council shall have power, in its discretion, to reject any and all bids, and to readvertise for proposals, as in the first instance, but without readvertising the resolution of intention, and thereafter the same proceedings shall be had as if the rejected bids had not been presented. After proposals have been received, examined, and declared, and after the said Council shall have ascertained the whole costs and expenses of the work, as provided in this section, the said Council shall direct the City Engineer to make a diagram of to be made. the property affected or benefited by said proposed work, as described in the resolution of intention therefor, and to be assessed to pay the expenses thereof. Said diagram shall City Engi neer to estimate. r-ject any or all bids. Diagram and estimate show each separate lot, piece, or parcel of land, the area in square feet of each of such lots, pieces, or parcels of land, and the relative location of the same to the work proposed to be done, all within the limits of the assessment district; and when said diagram shall have been approved by said Council, the Clerk shall, at the time of such approval, certify the fact and date thereof. Immediately thereafter said diagram shall be delivered to the Superintendent of Streets, together with a statement of the final estimated costs and expenses of such proposed work, fixed as above provided. tendent of estimate not to exceed SEC. 5. Upon receipt of such diagram and statement, said SuperinSuperintendent of Streets shall proceed to estimate upon the Streets to lands, pieces of land, lots, and portions of lots within said benefits and assessment district, as shown by said diagram, the benefits to assess. arise from such proposed work, and to be received by each such lot, portion of lot, piece, or subdivision of land; and shall thereupon assess upon and against said lands in said assessment district the total amount of the costs and expenses of such proposed work, and in so doing shall assess said total sum upon the several pieces, parcels, lots, portions of lots, and subdivisions of land in said assessment district benefited thereby, to wit: upon each respectively in proportion to the estimated benefits to be received by each of said several lots, portions of lots, pieces, parcels, or subdivisions of land as theretofore determined by him, as above provided; provided further, that no assessment shall be levied on any Assessments property which, together with all assessments for street fifty per cent improvements that may have been levied upon the same of value. property during the next preceding year, will amount to a sum greater than fifty per cent of the value at which said property was assessed upon the last preceding assessment roll of said city. SEC. 6. Within five days after the receipt by him of said List of diagram and statement, unless further time be granted by and descripsaid Council therefor, said Superintendent of Streets shall port make out and complete an assessment list, which shall show and exhibit in separate columns, first, the name of the owner of each separate lot, piece, parcel, or subdivision of land separately assessed, if known to him, and if the name of the owner be unknown to him, the word "unknown" shall be written opposite the number of each such subdivision of land; second, the assessment number of each separate subdivision of land separately assessed; third, a brief description by lot and block, or otherwise, of each such subdivision of land, which, in connection with the diagram herein before and hereinafter mentioned, shall be sufficient for the identification and location of each such subdivisions of land; fourth, the estimated benefits to each of such subdivisions of land; fifth, the amount assessed separately to each such subdivision; and sixth, a list of all separate lots, pieces, parcels, or subdivisions of land, if any, which are not benefited by said work or improvement. To the assessment list thus completed said Superintendent of Streets shall attach said diagram, showing the relative location of each of said subdivisions of land to the work proposed to be done, each of which said assessments property. |