Chap. 418.—An ACT to amend and re-enact section 4 of an act entitled an
act to provide for the consolidation or annexation of cities, approved
March 15, 1906. [H B 314]

Approved March 27, 1918.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That
section four of an act entitled an act to provide for the consolidation
or annexation of cities, approved March fifteenth, nineteen hundred
and six, be amended and re-enacted so as to read as follows:

Section 4. The two committees thus appointed shall meet in joint
session as soon as may be, and a majority of each committee being

resent and acting as separate units, shall proceed, with such ad-
journments from time to time as may be desirable, to prepare and
perfect an ordinance designed to be adopted by the councils of the
cities concerned, and to provide therein for the consolidation or
annexation proposed, upon such terms and conditions as said com-
mittees may agree upon. Such terms and conditions shall be set
forth in said ordinance, which shall be reported by each committee
to the council by which it was appointed, and which shall hereafter
be designated as the consolidation or annexation ordinance. If the
committee of the city first proposing such consolidation shall, by
resolution, determine that it is impossible to agree upon an ordinance
of consolidation with the committee of the council receiving the over-
ture, or 1f the council of the city with which consolidation or annexa-
tion is proposed does not, within thirty days from the receipt of the
certified copy of the ordinance proposing consolidation, appoint a
committee as herein provided. The city making the overtures of
consolidation may pass an ordinance as provided herein, providing
for the consolidation of the said cities, and petitioning the corpora-
tion or hustings court, or the judge thereof in vacation, of the city
receiving said overtures, to call a special election, and thereupon
the said court, or the judge thereof in vacation, shall pass an order
directing the proper election officers of the said municipality to
take such steps and prepare such means as may be necessary to sub-
mit to the qualified electors of the said city the question whether the
said proposed ordinance of consolidation shall be effective or not.
In case such ordinance is ratified by the qualified voters of such city
at such election after having been adopted by the council of the other
city, the proposed consolidation and annexation shall be as effective
as 1f the councils of the two cities had themselves agreed upon its
terms as provided in this act; provided, that should the committees
from both cities agree on a consolidation ordinance then the said
ordinance shall be submitted to the qualified voters of the city re-
ceiving said overture, and should a majority of the voters, voting
thereon vote for the ordinance, then the same shall be effective,
otherwise of no effect.

Provided further, that should the committees from the two cities
fail to agree on a consolidation ordinance within sixty days after an
ordinance to consoltdate the two cities has been presented to the
council, or other governing body of one of the cities, by the council
or other governing body of the other of the two cities, then the
ordinance so presented shall be submitted to the qualified voters of
the city receiving the overtures, and should a majority of the voters,
voting thereon, in said city, vote for the ordinance then the same
shall be effective, otherwise of no effect. Said election shall be held
in the manner provided for in section five hundred and eighty-one
of the Code.

2. The proper administration of public affairs being involved an
emergency exists and this act shall take effect from its passage.