Chap. 156.—An ACT to amend and re-enact chapter 515 of the acts of as-
sembly of 1902-3 entitled an act to work and keep in repair roads and
bridges in the county of Stafford, as amended and re-enacted by chapter
246 of the acts of 1908. (S. B. 492.)

Approved March 20, 1914.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That
an act entitled an act to work and keep in repair roads and bridges
in the county of Stafford, approved April second, nineteen hundred
and two, as amended by chapter two hundred and forty-six of the
acts of nineteen hundred and eight, be amended and re-enacted so
as to read as follows:

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That
it shall be lawful in the county of Stafford to build and construct
roads and bridges, condemn land therefor, to work and keep in
repair the roads and bridges within the said county as follows:

First, board of supervisors to have control of the public roads
and power to condemn land and material therefor—The board of
supervisors of Stafford county shall have exclusive control, super-
vision, management and jurisdiction over all of the public roads,
causeways, bridges, landings and wharves opened, erected or
repaired in said county: and for the purposes of opening roads and
landings, building bridges and wharves and obtaining material
therefor, they are hereby vested with the power of condemning
real property of every description not owned by a public service
corporation. Second, making of new roads, bridges and landings,
and alterations and relocation of old ones.—Whenever the board of
supervisors of said county shall be of opinion that it is advisable
and for the public convenience that any new road shall be made
or bridge built, or that any old road, bridge or landing shall be
altered or relocated in said county, or when thereto petitioned by
ten freeholders, the board of supervisors shall appoint two free-
holders of the county, together with either the county surveyor or
some engineer in charge of public road work in the county, as
viewers, any two of whom may act, who, after being duly sworn
that they will faithfully and impartially discharge their duties as
viewers, shall go upon the lands proposed to be taken and shall
view the various proposed routes and locations for the said road,
bridges or landing or for establishing any new road or landing,
or building, any bridge, report upon the expediency of altering the
location, width or grade of any road lay out the one they prefer,
if any, giving their reasons for the preference, and return with their
report a map or diagram of the proposed road showing its location
and width, provided every road shall be thirty feet wide, and the
grade of no road hereafter located shall exceed four (4) degrees,
unless the board of supervisors order a different width or a differ-
ent grade. Third, report of viewers.—They shall in writing report
to the board (1) the convenience and inconvenience that will result
as well to the individuals as to the public; (2) whether said road
will be one of such mere private convenience as to make it proper
that it shall be opened and kept in order by the person or persons
for whose convenience it is desired: (3) which of the landowners
require compensation; (4) what will be a just compensation to the
land owners requiring compensation for the land so taken and the
damage to the residue of the tract, beyond the peculiar benefits to
be derived in respect to such residue from the road, bridge or
landing to be establishel; (5) any other facts in their opinion
useful in enabling the board of supervisors to determine the expedi-
ency of establishing or altering the road or landing; and they shall
forthwith file their report with the clerk of the board. Fourth,
Opening of road for travel, notice to land owner.—The board at its
next meeting shall consider said report, and as soon as may be
either approve or disapprove it; and if the board approve the said
report, it shall forthwith order the construction and opening of
said road or bridge for travel, either by the overseer or in such
other manner as said board may direct, but such approval] shall
not determine the question of compensation to the land owner, and
the board shall cause the clerk to issue a summons to the owners
and tenants of the land affected thereby to appear and file with the
board in writing their claims for compensation at the next meeting
of the board, if they desire compensation for their land so damaged
or taken; however, no owner or tenant who is present in person or
by counsel when the order approving the report of viewers is
entered need be summoned. The summons may be directed,
executed and returned, as a summons may be in other cases, except
that it may be personally served in the county on an agent or tenant
of any proprietor not within the State, and such service shall be
equivalent to service on the proprietor. If the proprietor reside
cut of the State and have an agent or tenant known to the clerk
or board in the county, or if such proprietor be unknown to the
clerk or board, the clerk or board may order notice to all whom it
may concern to be published once a week for four weeks in some
newspaper and posted at the front door of the courthouse on some
court day, to appear and assert any claim he may have for damage
dene by establishing or altering such road or bridge.

Personai service of said summons on a non-resident and return
thereof may be in the mode and with the effect prescribed by section
thirty-two hundred and thirty-two of the Code; likewise if the clerk
shall send the summons by registered mail and have returned to him
a receipt signed by such party.

5. Appointment of commissioners; appeal allowed owne:.—If
upon the return of such process duly executed, any owner or tenant
as to whom it is returned duly executed, fails to appear, the said
board may direct that the amount allowed him by the viewers in
their report be paid him or may appoint commissioners as herein-
after provided to determine his compensation. Upon the appear-
ance of such owner or tenant before the board, if said board cannot
agree with him upon the amount of compensation, then the said
board shall, within sixty days after the completion of the work on
said road or bridge and the opening of it for travel, appoint five
disinterested freeholders of the county as commissioners, any three
of whom may act, who, after being duly sworn, shall meet at a
designated place on a day named in the order, notice of the time and
place of which meeting shall be given to the proprietors and tenants,
except that notice need not be given to one who was present in
person or by counsel when order was entered, go upon the land in
question, examine the premises and hear all parties in interest and
report in writing to the next meeting of the board what will be a
iust compensation to each party claiming damages for his land
tuken and for the damage to the residue of the tract beyond the
peculiar benefits to such residue from the road, bridge or landing
tu be established.

At its next meeting the board shall consider said report, hear
the parties whose property is affected thereby, and if good cause be
shown against the said report, or the commissioners report their
disagreement, or fail to report in reasonable time, the board of
supervisors, as often as may seem to it proper, may appoint other
commissioners for the purpose of ascertaining the compensation
aforesaid. When any report of commissioners is confirmed, the
board shall provide for the payment of the compensation allowed
therein, unless the party whose property is taken or damaged
shall decline to accept the amount allowed, in which case such party
may appeal of right from the order of the said board of supervisors
allowing compensation to the circuit court on the question of due
compensation, which court shall hear the matter of compensation
de novo with further right of appeal to all parties as provided by
general law, but no appeal shall be taken from the discretionery
finding of said board as to the advisability of opening or altering
any road or landing or building any bridge.

Stone, gravel, sand, earth, clay, timber and other material for
building and repairing roads, bridges and landings may be taken
for present use as provided in clauses twenty-one and twenty-two
of section nine hundred and forty-four-a of the Code of Virginia,
and the board of supervisors may acquire for present or future use
stone loose or in quarries, gravel beds, sand, earth and clay, or any
of them together, with ways of ingress and egress to and from same
by condemnation by the same procedure as prescribed in this section
fcr acquiring land for a road, bridge or landing, and may acquire
a fee simple or any less estate in the land where such material is
deposited.

6. The board of supervisors of the said county shall have
charge of the repairing and keeping in order all public roads and
bridges in the said county. For this purpose they are authorized
and empowered to levy a road tax not to exceed in any one year
sixty cents (60c) upon the hundred dollars ($100.00) of taxable
values in said county.

7. It shall be the duty of the supervisors of each magisterial
district to give personal supervision to all road and bridges in
his district, and to see that the road work by contract or otherwise
is properly done. The said supervisors shall each receive as com-
pensation for such services twenty dollars ($20.00) per annum, to
be paid out of this levy. And the said board of supervisors of the
said county may purchase an equipment, including teams, to be
used in permanently improving under the supervision of the State
highway commission such roads in said districts in said county as
the board may deem it advisable using for defraying the expenses
thereof the road levy provided for herein, together with any other
funds available.

8. The board of supervisors shall provide for all cost of roads
and bridges now in existence, and for opening and altering new
roads and building new bridges or rebuilding old ones, to be levied,
collected and paid out according to provisions of law, which work
shall be done in such way and manner as the said board shall
prescribe; provided, that all expenses for bridges that cost over
twenty-five dollars for building or repairing, the same shall be
paid out of the county levy, but the said board shall not expend
in any one year more than the amount for the levy for that fiscal
year unless they shall accumulate money out of the previous levies,
9. No member of the board of supervisors shall, directly or
indirectly, be interested in any contract made under this act.

10. All levies made under this act shall be extended by com-
missioners of revenue upon their books separate and apart from
other levies, and only be extended in the district in which they are
assessed.

11. It shall be left to the discretion of the board of supervisors
whether the road shall be worked by overseers, by contract or other-
wise, and for such roads as the board may deem advisable. It may
appoint overseers, who shall serve for a term of two years. The
overseers appointed hereunder shall receive twelve and one-half
cents per hour for the time they are actually engaged upon the work
on the roads, not including the time of going to and returning from
work. Each overseer shall submit to the board an itemized state-
ment, under oaths, showing the amount of time he has worked upon
the road, the time each man employed by him has worked, and the
umber of poles used, and the value of other timber and material
used, and from whose lands taken.

12. Schedule—For the work on the road under an overseer,
the time of going to and returning from work not to be computed,
the compensation for a two-horse team and driver shall be twenty-
five cents per hour actual work; one-horse team and driver, fifteen
cents per hour actual work; four-horse team and driver, forty cents
per hour actual work; hands, twelve and one-half cents per hour
actual work.

13. The board of supervisors of said county is hereby author-
ized to purchase such tools, implements: and machinery, as well as
teams that may be needed for work on public roads, and to hire
men for any special work at a compensation to be agreed upon by
the beard; all money raised by road tax levied under this act shall
be expended in the district where collected, and in case an overseer
is appointed to work any road, the supervisor of the district, or the
supervisors of the district in which the road lies, shall on January
first of each year notify the said overseers of the amount of money
to be spent in work for his roads for that year, and he shall not
receive pay or bind the board of supervisors of his district for any
amount in excess of the amount allotted by the board of super-
visors for the said road.

14. There being an emergency, owing to the condition of some
of the roads in the county of Stafford needing repairs, and owing
to the delay in the condemnation of land for rights of way, this act
shall be in force from the time of its passage.