Chap. 265.—An ACT to amend and re-enact section 2854 of the Code of Virginia,
as heretofore amended, relating to courthouses, clerk’s offices, jails and jailors.

[H B 193]
Approved March 24, 1932

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

Section 2854. 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 thereof, and of the land on which they may be,
and of keeping 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. And the board of supervisors of any county
may, if they deem expedient, acquire, in addition to the two acres of
aforementioned, as much as twenty acres of land, at any point within
their county to be used for county purposes, and in counties having a
density of population of three hundred or more per square mile ac-
cording to the last preceding United States census, as much as fifty
acres for county purposes including the uses of the local board of
health; and the board of supervisors of each county, or the council
of each city shall, if there be offices in the courthouses of the re-
spective counties and cities, available for such purposes, provide offices
for the treasurer, Commonwealth’s attorney, sheriff, commissioner of
the revenue, commissioner 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 fur-
nishing offices to the said officers, may be rented for a term of not
exceeding one year to other parties for office purposes, and any public
room or hall in the building may be hired for compensation tor 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. F urthermore, where the board of
supervisors of any county or the council or other governing body of any
city, in providing land for the courthouse, clerk’s office, and jail pur-
poses, 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
governing body, not required for said purposes, such board, council,
or other governing body, if deemed proper by it, may either lease such
building 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 purposes of a courthouse, clerk’s office or jail.

EES