Chap. 408.—An ACT to amend and re-enact an act entitled an act to provide
-.for working, building and keeping in repair the public roads and bridges
‘in Grayson county, approved March 6, 1900, and, as further amended by

an act approved March 14, 1904, and as further amended by an act approved
March 13, 1908, and as further amended by an act approved March 1, 1918,
and as further amended by an act approved September 10, 1919, and as

-- further amended by an act approved March 10, 1920. {H B 260]

Approved March 24, 1922.

‘1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That an
act entitled an act to provide for making, building and keeping in
repair the public roads and bridges in Grayson county, approved
March sixth, nineteen hundred; and further amended by an act ap-
proved March fourteenth, nineteen hundred and four; and as further
amended by an act approved March thirteenth, nineteen hundred and
eight ; and as further amended by an act approved March first, nine-
teen hundred and eighteen; and as further amended by an act ap-
proved September tenth, nineteen hundred and nineteen; and as
further amended by an act approved March tenth, nineteen hundred
and twenty, be amended and re-enacted so as to read as follows:

The board of supervisors of Grayson county shall have original
jurisdiction to open, establish, alter, change, discontinue, and build
all roads and bridges in the county of Grayson. |
- _2. Every application to open, establish, or change any public or
private road shall be presented to the board of supervisors while
in session and the board shall then have authority to appoint five
freeholders of the district in which the road is located or is proposed
to be located, any three of whom may act, to view and examine such
roads or route and report upon the expediency of changing or alter-
ing the location of any road or opening any new road; the viewers
may recommend a new or different route.

‘ 3. The clerk of the board of supervisors shall make a copy of the
order appointing the viewers and shall send to each one by mail on
the day the order is entered a copy of the order appointing him
and the viewers shall within ten days from the date of the order
appointing them meet at the most convenient place on the proposed
new road or alteration of the road proposed to be made or changed
or altered in said order. The viewers before they proceed to dis-
charge their duties shall be severally sworn to perform their duties
impartially and to the best of their judgment.

. :The oath may be administered to said viewers by the supervisor
of the district in which the road proposed to be established, altered
or changed or by anyone having authority to administer an oath.
If the viewers decide that the public convenience requires the estab-
lishment of:such new road, or the alteration or change of such old
road, they shall lay out the same, having respect for the shortest
distance and best location, and shall assess the damage, if any, done
to land through which the road passes, taking into consideration the
advantages to be derived from the road passing through the land,
and the said viewers shall make report in writing to its next meet-
ing, giving the names of the proprietors and tenants of the land on
which it is proposed to establish or alter such road, which of the
proprietors and tenants require compensation, and what will be a
just compensation to each of the proprietors and tenants claiming
compensation. |

In all cases where further notice and service of process or sum-
mons have been waived in writing, by each of the said proprietors
and tenants, or by attorneys before the board, the board shall at the
same meeting to which said report is returned, determine the ques-
tion of establishing or altering such road, and shall hear testimony
and fix upon a just compensation to the proprietors and tenants for
the land proposed to be taken and the damage accruing therefrom.
But in the event that further notice and service of process have not
been waived as herein provided unless the board be against estab-
lishing or altering such road, the board shall require its clerk to
issue process to summons the proprietors and tenants of the lands
on which it is proposed to establish or alter such roads to the next
meeting of the board, to show cause against establishing or altering
such road, but such process shall not be necessary, nor shall process
issue as to any proprietors or tenants who have in the manner herein-
before waived or acknowledged service of such process, or claims
no damage.

Upon return of said process duly executed, as to all of the said
proprietors and tenants who have not waived or acknowledged ser-
vice of. the same, defense may be made to the said proceedings by
any party, and the board of supervisors may, in its discretion, hear
testimony touching the expediency of establishing or altering the
road, the supervisors shall limit the number of witnesses to six that
they will hear for and against establishing the road or making the
proposed alterations or changes.

The clerk of the board shall not tax or allow pay to more than
six witnesses in any proceedings under this act.

Upon such hearing, unless the board be of opinion that the road
ought not to be established or altered, it shall proceed to fix a just
compensation to the proprietors or tenants for the land proposed to
be taken and the damage accruing therefrom. But if any tenant or
proprietor desire it, or the board see cause for so doing, it may, in
its discretion, appoint five disinterested freeholders of the county
as commissioners (any three of whom may act) for the purpose of
ascertaining a just compensation for the land to be used for such road,
after which the same proceeding shall be had, as provided for the
commissioners for a like purpose under the general road law of the
State. If the board of supervisors be of opinion that the road should
not be opened or change made, then all cost incident to the appli-
cation for such new road or changes shall be paid by the applicant.
No money to be paid for damage in condemnation proceedings till
road is accepted and completed. Viewers and commissioners ap-
pointed shall each receive two dollars per day for their services.

The board of supervisors of Grayson county shall have general
supervision, control and charge of working and keeping in repair the
roads and opening and making all new roads and repairing the
bridges of the county, all work done and repairs made on old roads
to be done in the spring and summer months of each year, except
permanent work and keeping open ditches and culverts. And for this
purpose must purchase such tools, implements and machinery as is
necessary to have the roads and bridges built or repaired.

It shall have authority to direct a surveyor of said county to
define the boundary of any road therein, and to alter the grade of any
existing road, and to perform such other services as in the opinion
of the board may be necessary to carry out the provisions of this
act, for which service the said surveyors shall receive reasonable com-
pensation from the said board, not exceeding, however, three dollars
per day, payable out of the road fund of the magisterial district in
which the surveying is done.

Each supervisor of the several magisterial districts of the county
shall give personal supervision to and shall have charge and control
of the roads and bridges in their respective districts. It shall be the
duty of such supervisor to see that roads in his district are kept
cleared of rocks, and ‘other obstructions, of necessary width, and the
beds of the roads raised in the middle and sloped gradually each way
to the sides, well drained by underground culvert, and secure from the
falling of dead timber thereon, and otherwise in good order; that
a suitable sign board is placed and kept at every important fork or
crossing of every road, on which shall be stated in plain letters the
most noted places to which each road leads, and the distance thereto ;
and that suitable bridges be constructed and maintained in a safe,
substantial condition over such streams and ravines as may need
them, and that across any stream or ravine where it may be necessary
or practical a sufficient bridge, bench or log shall be made for the
accommodation of foot passengers, which shall always be kept in a
safe condition, and where the beds of said roads are encroached upon,
such supervisor shall notify in writing by letter mailed to the post-
office address of the person encroaching or trespassing on the public
roads to forthwith remove the obstruction, and if the same be not
done in five days, he, the supervisor, shall cause said obstruction to be
removed and shall recover the expenses, with costs, from said tres-
passer, and the supervisor shall also recover from the said trespasser
a fine not exceeding twenty-five dollars nor less than ten dollars
before any justice of the peace of his district. The fine shall be
paid by the justice of the peace to the treasurer of the county, who
shall place the same to the credit of the road fund of the magisterial
district in which it is recovered.

5. The supervisors of each magisterial district of the said county,
in the discharge of his duties, is hereby authorized and empowered
to let the working, improvement, and repairs of any road or roads,
or the building or repair of any bridge or bridges in his district, to
contract, may lay off the roads of his district into sections, and
appoint or employ road overseers for such sections, may employ or
hire laborers, hands, teams, implements and machinery, for the pur-
pose of working and repairing the roads and bridges in his district,
and appoint or employ foremen, who shall have charge of the same.
When work is paid for by the day, not less than ten hours shall
constitute a day’s work, and for each day’s work the sum of not more
than two dollars shall be paid to each able-bodied laborer; when less
than a day’s work is performed, not more than twenty cents per hour
shall be paid. The supervisor shall not allow for team and wagon
and hand, or team and plow and hand, more than four dollars per
day. The supervisor shall pay to each foreman or road overseer
not more than two dollars and fifty cents per day. The supervisor
shall not allow more than two dollars and fifty cents per day for
any hand running a road plow or tractor pulling a road plow.

6. Each overseer or foreman employed under the provisions of
this act shall make out an itemized account of all the work done
by him, or under his charge or direction, showing the teams, tools,
implements and machinery used and the number and names of the
laborers employed, the dates on which the work was done, the number
of hours worked each day, the amount charged by each laborer for
each day or part of a day, and shall state accurately the road on
which the work was done, and shall make oath to the correctness
thereof before the supervisor of the district in which the work was
done. The supervisor of the district or any one authorized by law to
administer oaths shall administer the oath to the overseer or fore-
man; it shall then be the duty of the supervisor to whom such
account ts presented to inspect and examine the roads and bridges
for the working, repairing or building of which the amount is pre-
sented, and if satisfied that the account 1s correct, he shall issue a
warrant on the treasurer of the county for the amount due each man,
as shown by said report, payable to the order of said person or persons
at any time there are suffcient funds in the hands of the treasurer
to the credit of the magisterial district road fund in which said work
is done,

7. When any blasting is necessary on any public road, the super-
visor of the district in which the road is located shall employ a
competent person to do the same and shall furnish such tools and
materials as necessary to complete the work, the person so employed
and his assistants shall be paid at the rate of twenty cents pé& hour.
When such work is completed and an itemized account thereof made
out, it shall be paid out of the road fund of the magisterial district
in which the road is located. If there is not a sufficient amount of
money to the credit of the road fund of said district, the same shall
be paid out of any money of the county not otherwise appropriated.

8. No new road shall be ordered opened by the board of super-
visors unless it shall first be made to appear that there is sufficient
surplus in the treasury to the credit of the road fund of the magis-
terial district in which said new road is proposed to be opened or
of money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated sufficient to pay
the same or unless the parties interested in the opening said pro-
sed new road shall agree and obligate themselves to open and
uild said proposed new road without cost to said magisterial district
or to the county. .

9. For the purpose of raising revenue for building, working and
keeping in repair the public roads and bridges of said county, the
board of supervisors shall annually levy, along with the county levy,
a tax upon all property, real and tangible personal, assessed for
taxation in the several magisterial districts of the county, which shall
be applied for building, working and keeping in repair the public
roads and bridges in said district and the compensation of the fore-
man or road overseers and others provided for under the provisions
of this act, such tax shall not be less than forty cents nor more than
fifty cents on every hundred dollars valuation of such property. The
said levy shall be collected by the treasurer of said county as other
county levies, accounted for and paid out on the warrant of the super-
visors, except that a levy of each magisterial district shall be kept
separate by the county treasurer; each supervisor of the county may
draw on his own warrant only the funds of his magisterial district,
the amount collected in each magisterial district shall be expended
in the district in which it has been collected. .

10. The board of supervisors, in addition to the road tax herein
provided, shall appropriate to the road fund provided by this act
any balance that may remain at the end of any fiscal year to the
credit of the county fund or levy, or so much of said balance as said
board may deem wise or expedient to appropriate; and in addition
to the tax herein provided, the said board may appropriate to the
road fund taxes derived from railroad, telegraph and telephone
companies, and the said board shall appropriate twenty per cent of
the money derived from said district levy for the purpose of per-
manently improving some important rodd in each district each year
and may appropriate any other money not otherwise expensed or
appropriated that belongs to the county to permanently improve each
year some important road in each district in said county, and this
fund may be used with or without State aid for such permanent
improvement as the board may deem best, and the supervisor in
selecting the road he will permanently improve each year by the
funds collected by this act shall give preference to the road that the
citizens living in that community, or any other private source, will
make the largest private donation for the purpose of making said
permanent improvement. No foreman or overseer shall work less
than six hands. No supervisor or foreman or overseer shall be inter-
ested, financially, either directly or indirectly, in any contract for
opening, repairing or altering any road or bridge or the purchase of
any tools or machinery provided for in this act.

11. Each supervisor shall have charge of the roads in his district
and shall have power to appoint a sufficient number of foremen to
take charge of the hands in his district, in building, working and
repairing the roads in said district, but no foreman shall be appointed
by the supervisor of a district unless he has had practical experience
in road building or will carry out definitely the plans and specifica-
tions furnished him by the supervisor of the district in building or
repairing any road in the district.

12. Each supervisor shall go over and personally inspect the
roads of his district and shall keep them in good condition and repair,
for which services the said supervisor shall receive the sum of four
dollars per day; provided, however, he shall not be paid for more
than fifty days in any one year for service under this act, and the
clerk of the board of supervisors shall not receive for his services
less than forty nor more than eighty dollars for any one year.

13. Each supervisor shall keep a book and shall keep down the
names of all the foremen or road overseers employed by him, the tools
and machinery purchased by him, and shall number the roads of
his district and shall give to each road a name, the name and number
of the road shall be the same that the clerk of the board is required
to give to each road in section eighteen of this act, and shall keep
in the book the names of the men employed by him and the amount
paid to each one, and shall bring said book to the monthly meetings
of the board of supervisors and it shall be open for inspection for any
taxpayer of the county, and the amounts paid out by him in the
building and repairing of the roads and bridges of his district shall
be published as required by the general law of the State.

14. The supervisor or any person appointed or employed to work
on the roads, or build or repair the bridges, as herein provided, may
take from any convenient lands, whether on the right of roadway or
not, so much wood, stone, gravel or earth as may be ,.necessary to
be used in construction, improving or repairing such roads or any
bridge or causeway thereon, and may, for the purpose of draining
said road, cause a ditch to be cut through any lands adjoining the
same. For any material taken or ditch cut compensation shall be
allowed only as provided by the general road laws of the State.

15. If any foreman or road overseer fails to keep his road in
order and in good condition, on complaint in writing of any taxpayer
of his district to the supervisor of the district, he shall be fined not
less than ten nor more than fifty dollars, if it can be shown that he
has funds at his command for repairing the said road, said fine shall
be recovered before a justice of the peace for said county, and shall be
paid to the treasurer of the county and placed to the credit of the
road fund in said magisterial district.

16. Each supervisor shall make an equitable and fair distribution
of the money derived from this act in his magisterial district on all
the public roads in his district, taking into consideration the amount
of travel and importance of each road. He shall not allow any funds
to be expended in permanently improving any road exceeding four
degrees ; he shall have authority to remove any foreman or overseer
at any time he considers it to the best interest of the roads of his
district.

17. The board of supervisors shall cause to be kept by the clerk
of their board an itemized account of all work done and money ex-
perdied for tools and machinery and in building, working and keep-
ing in repair roads and bridges of the county, which shall be recorded
by the clerk of the board of supervisors in a book to be kept for the
purpose and published in a manner provided by law for publication
of expenditures. The supervisor shall deliver to his successor in office
all tools and machinery purchased by him or owned by his magisterial
district and take his receipt for same and file this receipt with the
clerk of the board. The board of supervisors shall devise a sysetm
of bookkeeping to carry out the intention of this act and require
the clerk of the board to keep such book as directed and they shall
prescribe the method by which the treasurer shall keep his books
with reference to the county and district levies, and a collection of
the county and district road tax and require the clerk and treasurer
to follow out the plans and details of the system of said board of
supervisors; but each supervisor shall keep a separate book as re-
quired of him by section thirteen of this act.

18. The supervisors shall purchase a well bound book suitable
for keeping and recording records therein, and this book shall be
labled “Public and Private Roads of Grayson County.” This book
shall be delivered by the board of supervisors to the clerk of the
board and the clerk shall record and index in this book all the public
and private roads of the county. He shall state the magisterial
district in which the road is located, where it commences and where it
terminates, the name and the number. of each road, the length of
same, the community through which it passes. And hereafter when
a public or private road is located, constructed and established or an
alteration made in an old road the clerk shall index and record the
Same as herein provided; nothing else shall be written or printed
in this book except what is required to be by this section of this act.

No supervisor or clerk of this board shall receive any compensa-
tion under this act until this section has been fully complied with.

19. Each memben of the board of supervisors for a failure to
perform any duty required of him under this act shall be deemed
guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall, upon conviction thereof, be fined
not less than one hundred nor more than five hundred dollars; said
fine shall be applied to the road funds of this district in which the
failure to perform said duty occurs.

20. The general road law of this State, except in so far as the
same 1s in conflict with the provisions of this act, shall remain in
force in the county of Grayson; provided, however, nothing in this
act shall apply to any portion of the State highway system which
is now or may hereafter be located and established in said county
of Grayson.

21. All acts and parts of acts in conflict with this act, except
such as relate to the State highway system, are hereby repealed, so
far as applicable to Grayson county.

3. An emergency is declared to exist and this act shall be in force
from its passage.