CHAPTER 185 - MILFORD - ASSESSORS AND ASSESSMENT OF TAXES
AN ACT TO AMEND AN ACT ENTITLED "AN ACT CHANGING THE NAME OF 'THE TOWN OF MILFORD' TO 'THE CITY OF MILFORD' AND ESTABLISHING A CHARTER THEREFOR" CONCERNING ASSESSORS AND ASSESSMENT OF TAXES.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Delaware in General Assembly met (two-thirds of all the members elected to each branch thereof concurring therein):
Section 1. That Chapter 162, Volume 37, Laws of Delaware 1931, be and the same is hereby amended by striking out and repealing Section 13 thereof and inserting in lieu thereof the following:
"Section 13. The Council shall, during the month of September, 1945 and annually thereafter, appoint by a majority vote a Board of Assessors consisting of four (4) members, one from each ward of the City, each of said members to serve for the term of one (1) year. Any vacancy therein shall be filled by appointment of the Council for the unexpired term. They shall be sworn or affirmed by a Justice of the Peace of the City or by an Alderman to perform their duties with fidelity and without favor. It shall be their duty to make a fair, equal, faithful, complete and impartial assessment of property and persons subject to taxation situate or residing within the territorial limits of the City.
1. In the year 1946 and every fourth year' thereafter, there shall be made a true, just and impartial valuation and assessment of all the real property within the limits of the City and of all personal property subject to County taxation within the City (except farm lands to the extent that they are exempted by the provisions of this Charter), locating each parcel of real property by street and number, or other description, and also an assessment of all the male and female residents in the City above the age of twenty-one (21) years, whether owners or not owners of either real or personal property within its limits.
2. All assessment shall be made and completed by the Board of Assessors prior to the First day of March. The assessment made in the year 1946 and in every fourth year thereafter, shall be known as the General Assessment. In other years, there shall be made a scrap assessment, as hereinafter provided.
3. The scrap assessment shall value and assess all taxable real property and personal property in the City not already valued and assessed by the General Assessment then in force, and all improvements made upon said real property since said General Assessment and all male and female residents of the City above the age of twenty-one (21) years and not already assessed, and said assessment shall omit the names of those who have removed from the City or who have died. In the year that a scrap assessment is made, the General Assessment then in force as supplemented or modified by the scrap assessment, shall constitute the assessment for the year.
4. The assessors shall make and deliver to the Council as soon as the assessments are made such numbers of copies thereof as the Council shall direct.
5. The property of the several members of the Board of Assessors, real and personal, shall be assessed by the Council.
6. The Council shall, prior to the fifteenth day of March in each year, cause a copy of the General Assessment, or scrap assessment as made in said year, to be hung up in two public places in the City, and there to remain for the space of ten (10) days for public information. Attached to said copies shall be a notice of the day, hour and place that the Council will sit as a Board of Revision and Appeal; and the notice of the hanging up of the copies of the assessment and the places where the same are hung up and of the clay, hour, and place when the Council will sit as a Board of Revision and Appeal shall be published in at least one issue of a newspaper published in the City.
7. At the time and place designated in the notice aforesaid, the Council shall sit as a Board of Revision and Appeal to correct and revise the assessment, and to hear appeals concerning the same. They shall have full power and authority to alter, revise, add to, and take from the said assessment. The decision of a majority of the Council shall be final and conclusive; and no member of Council shall sit on his own appeal.
8. The assessment, as revised and adjusted by the Council, shall be the basis for the levy and collection of the taxes for the City.
9. The Council shall also have the right to levy and collect taxes on all underground cables and upon all telephone, telegraph power poles or other erections of like character erected within the limits of the City, together with the wires and appliances thereto or thereon attached, that are now assessable and taxable, and to this end, may at any time direct the same to be included in or added to the City Assessment. In case the owner or lessee of such poles or erections shall refuse or neglect to pay the taxes that may be levied thereon, the said taxes may be collected by the Treasurer as in case of other taxes, and the Council shall have authority to cause the same to be removed.
10. No farm lands hereby included within the limits of the City of Milford shall be subject to any City tax unless the same shall be laid out .as building lots or unless the same shall front upon some public street of the City of Milford which shall be laid out and improved; and all farm lands within the aforesaid limits which shall be laid out as building lots or which shall front upon some public street of the City of Milford laid out and improved shall be subject to be taxed to the depth of one hundred and fifty (150) feet from said street line for City purposes. Nor shall the farm buildings and personal property located on any such farm lands included within the limits of the City of Milford, be subject to any City Tax.
11. The Council shall be sole judges of what lands are, and what lands are not "farm lands" within the meaning of this Charter.
12. The General Assessment made and in force under the Charter of the City of Milford and the amendments thereto, shall continue in force and effect until the next General Assessment to be made in the year 1946.
13. The Council shall determine and fix a rate of taxation which will produce approximately the amount of money necessary to defray the expenses of the City for the current year, including interest on bonded indebtedness and for redemption of maturing bonds and for maintenance of a sinking fund.
14. The limit of taxation for current expenses is that rate which by estimation will produce a sum not exceeding Fifty Thousand Dollars ($50,000.00j, but added thereto there shall also be fixed a rate which will produce an amount sufficient to provide for interest on bonds, the redemption thereof at their several maturities and to cover the sinking fund requirements."
Approved April 24, 1945.