Chap. 240.—An ACT to amend and re-enact section 2854 of the Code of Vir-
ginia. [H B 263]

Approved March 16, 1920.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, that section
twenty-eight hundred and fifty-four of the Code of Virginia, be
amended and re-enacted so as to read as follows:

Sec. 2854. Courthouse, clerk’s office and jail to be provided by
supervisors and council; offices for certain other officers may be pro-
vided ; vacant rooms may be let for offices and provisions made for
public entertainments ; buildings may be leased for private purposes,
or used for market-houses or other public purposes.—There shall be
provided by the board of supervisors for every county and the council
for every city a courthouse, clerk’s office and jail, the cost whereof, and
of the land on which they may be, and of keeping in the same in
good order, shall be chargeable to the county or city; the fee simple
of the lands shall be in the county or city, and the supervisors of the
county or the council of the city, may purchase so much land as, with
what it has, will make two acres, whereof what may be necessary for
the purpose, shall be occupied with the courthouse, clerk’s office and
jail and the residue planted with trees and kept as a place for the
people of the county or city to meet and confer together; “but the
board of supervisors of each county, or the council of each city,
shall, if there be offices of the courthouses of the respective counties
and cities, available for such purpose, provide offices for the treasurer,
Commonwealth’s attorney, sheriff, commissioner of the revenue, com-
missioner of accounts and division superintendent of schools for such
county or city, and if such offices are not available in the courthouse,
same may be provided by said board of supervisors or council, if they
deem it proper, elsewhere than in the courthouse of said county or
city; and with the approval of the judge of the circuit or corporation
court, any vacant rooms in the courthouse, after furnishing offices to
the said officers, may be rented for a term not exceeding one year” to
other parties for office purposes, and any public room or hall in the
building may be hired for compensation for the purpose of giving
public entertainments, and all moneys received by the counties or cities
under this section, shall constitute a fund to maintain and care for
such building. Furthermore, where the board of supervisors of any
county or the council or other governing body of any city, in pro-
viding land for the courthouse, clerk’s office, and jail purposes, has
purchased land, a part of which had valuable buildings thereon
when purchased and that portion of the land so occupied by such
buildings is, in the discretion of such board, council, or other govern-
ing body, not required for said purposes, such board, council, or other
governing body, if deemed proper by it, may either lease such build-
ing or buildings for private purposes, or remodel and use the same
for a market-house or for other public purposes, or both, although
such lease or use may reduce the total to less than two acres and
although as much as two acres may never have been acquired, but
such lease or use shall be first approved by the judge of the circuit
court of the county, or of the corporation court of the city, as the
case may be, and such lease or use shall be terminated when, in the
opinion of such judge such building or buildings, or the land occupied
by same, is needed for the purpose of a courthouse, clerk’s office or
jail.