Chap. 364.—An ACT to amend and re-enact sections 2, 16, 19, 21, 22 and 28 of
an act entitled an act to provide a charter and special form of government
for the city of Hampton, and to repeal the existing charter for said city,
formerly the town of Hampton, approved May 23, 1887, and the several acts
amendatory thereof, approved, respectively, February 29, 1892; February 24,
1896; March 3, 1898; January 13, 1900; January 30, 1900; February 23, 1901;
the two acts of May 15, 1903; March 2, 1914; March 9, 1916, and the act of
December 26, 1903, which became a law without the Governor’s signature;
and all other acts and parts of acts inconsistent with this act so far as they
relate to the city of Hampton, approved March 16, 1920, as heretofore
amended; to repeal section 23 of the said act; and to provide for the effect
of said repeal; and to prescribe the conditions upon which the said amend-
ments and the said repeal shall become effective. [H B 545]

Approved March 27, 1936

1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia, That sec-
tions two, sixteen, nineteen, twenty-one, twenty-two and twenty-eight
of an act entitled an act to provide a charter and special form of gov-
ernment for the city of Hampton, and to repeal the existing charter
of said city, formerly the town of Hampton, approved May twenty-
third, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven, and the several acts amenda-
tory thereof, approved, respectively, February twenty-ninth, eighteen
hundred and ninety-two; February twenty-fourth, eighteen hundred
and ninety-six; March third, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight; Jan-
uary thirteenth, nineteen hundred; January thirtieth, nineteen hundred ;
February twenty-third, nineteen hundred and one; the two acts of
May fifteenth, nineteen hundred and three; March second, nineteen
hundred and fourteen; March ninth, nineteen hundred and sixteen,
and the act of December twenty-sixth, nineteen hundred and three,
which became a law without the Governor’s signature; and all other
acts and parts of acts inconsistent with this act so far as they relate to
the city of Hampton, approved March sixteenth, nineteen hundred
and twenty, as heretofore amended, be amended and re-enacted so as to
read as follows:

Section 2. In the election of county clerk, Commonwealth’s attor-
ney and sheriff of Elizabeth City county, the election precincts of the
city of Hampton shall be treated as election precincts of such county,
and the regular election officials of the said city shall hold and conduct
the said election therein. The council shall make all necessary rules for
receiving and depositing the ballots cast for all officers elective in the
said city, and shall provide separate ballot boxes for use in electing
city officials, on which boxes the words “city of Hampton” shall be
painted or printed in letters not less than one and one-half inches in
length.

Section 16. The commissioner of the revenue shall be elected at
the time and in the manner prescribed in section fourteen of this act.
He shall give bond in the penal sum of two thousand dollars ($2,-
000.00), payable to the city, with surety to be approved by the council,
and conditioned for the faithful performance of his duties. He shall
issue all State and city licenses and discharge all the duties imposed on
him by this act, by the general law, and as may be required of him by
ordinances and resolutions of the council. He shall assess all property
and persons property taxable within the city for State and city pur-
poses, and extend such taxes and levies on a roll or book for that pur-
pose, a copy of which, with the city taxes and levies extended, he shall
deliver to the treasurer of the city; and he shall also perform such
duties as the council may prescribe. He shall receive for his services
such compensation as the general law may prescribe, or as may be
prescribed by the council.

Section 19. The revenue shall be under the control of the council,
and shall be derived from the following sources: Taxes upon all prop-
erty, real, personal, and mixed, owned or taxable within the corporate
limits, except such as may be exempted from city taxation, provided
that the rate of taxation for all purposes shall not exceed the follow-

ing:

For schools ....... 22.000. eee eee $1.25
For permanent improvements ...... 15
For all other purposes ............ 1.85

Total 2.0... eee eee eee $3.25

On each one hundred dollars ($100.00) valuation on all real and
tangible property, and not to exceed the limit imposed by the State on
other property for all city purposes; provided, further, that the tax
rate of fifteen cents (15¢) named herein for permanent improvements,
may be levied only for retirement of bonds, and interest thereon, issued
for permanent improvements authorized on and after March first,
nineteen hundred and thirty-four, in event the tax rate for all other
purposes of one dollar and eighty-five cents ($1.85) is not sufficient ta
retire said bonds and interest thereon. It may impose and collect
license taxes for the city; license for the sale of merchandise upon
manufacturers, traders, lawyers, physicians, dentists, brokers, pawn-
brokers, hotels, boarding housekeepers, keeper of drinking or eating
houses, keepers of livery stables, photograph artists of all kinds, agents
of all kinds, vendors of medicine, theatrical and circus companies or
other performances or shows, menageries, jugglers, itinerant salesmen,
and upon all shows and exhibitions for which an entrance fee is re-
quired; upon keepers of pool and billard tables, tenpin alleys, shooting
galleries, hawkers, peddlers, sample merchants, upon the business of
fire or bankrupt sales; upon the business of commission merchants liv-
ing within or without the city and buying or selling therein; upon any
and all business occupations, professions and pursuits; and upon all
persons, firms, corporations or employments, whether of like kind with
any of the foregoing or not, which it may deem proper, and whether
any such persons, firm, corporation or employment be herein specifically
enumerated or not, and whether any tax be imposed thereon by the
State or not; upon the wagons, drays, carts, hacks, automobiles, motor-
cycles and other wheeled vehicles and delivery wagons, used for busi-
ness within the city, whether the owners reside, or their place of busi-
ness is within or without the limits thereof; upon automobiles, motor-
cycles and other motor vehicles; upon dogs and other animals; upon
all moneys owned by or credits due to any person living in the city;
all capital of persons having a place of business in the city and doing
business therein and employed in the same business, though the said
business may be conducted beyond the city; provided that so much of
said capital as is invested in real estate, or employed in the manufac-
ture of articles outside of the limits of the city, shall not be taxed as
capital ; all stocks in incorporated joint stock companies doing business
in the city and by whomsoever owned and not exempt by law from
taxation ; income, interest on money, dividends of banks or other cor-
porations, provided that no capital, interest, income or dividend shall
be taxed when a license or other tax is imposed upon the business in
which said capital is employed or upon the principal money, credit or
stocks from which the interest, income or dividend is derived; nor shall
a tax be imposed at the same time upon stock of corporation and upon
dividends thereof.

Assessment upon stocks and bonds shall be according to the market
value thereof.

As to all such business, firms, corporations or employments the
council may lay a direct tax, or may require a license tax therefor,
under such regulations as it may prescribe; and from fines, penalties
and costs imposed for violation or non-observance of the ordinances,
by-laws and resolutions adopted pursuant to this act.

The council may subject any person who, without having obtained
a license therefor, shall do any act, or following any employment, busi-
ness or profession in the city for which a license is required by ordi-
nance to such fine, penalty or imprisonment as it is authorized to im-
pose for any violation of its laws; provided that nothing in this section
or elsewhere in this act, shall be construed as authorizing the imposition
of taxes or license fees in any case where the imposition of said taxes
or license fees by cities and towns is prohibited by general law.

The foregoing provisions of this section are hereby qualified to this
extent, that they shall not be construed as to conflict with the general
laws of this State in relation to the segregation of the subjects of taxa-
tion.

Section 21. Courts.—The city shall continue, in every respect,
within the jurisdiction of the circuit court of Elizabeth City county,
Virginia, in which county it is situated; and there shall be one and the
same circuit court for the city and the said county. There shall be,
for the said county and city, but one courthouse, and county clerk’s
office, and the county clerk of the said county shall continue, in all
respects, as the clerk of the said circuit court. Such court shall con-
tinue to be known as the circuit court of Elizabeth City county, Vir-
ginia, in which said county the city is located and such court shall have
the same jurisdiction in the city, in all respects, as corporation or
hustings courts in other cities, in so far as such jurisdiction is applicable
to cities of the second class. There shall be one jail for both the city
and county, of which the sheriff of Elizabeth City county shall be
ex-officio jailer.

The Commonwealth’s attorney, the county clerk, he being the clerk
of the circuit court, and the sheriff of Elizabeth City county, whether
heretofore or hereafter elected or appointed, shall continue to exercise
and have the same rights and privileges, and perform the the same
duties, and have the same jurisdiction and receive the same fees and/or
salary therefor in the city of Hampton as they did in the town of
Hampton before said municipality became a city of the second class;
and the qualified voters residing in the said city shall be entitled to
vote for the said officers at the primary and general election for county
officers ; and the voting precincts of the city shall be treated for such
election purposes as precincts of the county of Elizabeth City, as if such
city had not been declared to be a city of the second class. And the
said officers may retain their residences and voting places either within
the city of Hampton or the county of Elizabeth City. The cost and
expense of the circuit court of the county, includiing jury costs, and
the salaries of the judge and clerk of said circuit court, and the clerk,
Commonwealth’s attorney and sheriff of the county, shall be borne by
the city of Hampton and county in the proportion that the population
of each bears to the aggregate population of the city and county. The
said expenses and costs shall include stationery, furniture, books, of-
fice supplies and equipment for the court and clerk’s office; supplies,
repairs and alterations on the buildings used jointly by the city and
county, as well as insurance, fuel, water, lights, et cetera used in and
about said buildings and the grounds thereof, and the cost of any new
building erected for the joint use of the city and county shall be pro-
vided for in like manner.

Section 22. The county clerk, Commonwealth’s attorney and sher-
iff and all notaries public of Elizabeth City county, in which the city
is located, whether heretofore or hereafter elected or appointed, shall,
except as otherwise provided, continue to exercise and have the same
rights and privileges, and perform the same duties, and have the same
jurisdiction, and receive the same fees in the city as they would receive
were the city a magisterial district of the said county; and the qual-
ified voters residing within the city of Hampton shall be entitled to
vote for said elective county officers at the primary and general elec-
tion for county officers of the county of Elizabeth City as if such city
were a part of the said county.

The electoral board for the city of Hampton shall be appointed by
the circuit court of the county of Elizabeth City, or the judge thereof,
in vacation, in conformity with the provisions of section thirty-one of
the Constitution of Virginia,
The inhabitants of the city of Hampton shall have and may exer-
cise all powers which are now, or hereafter may be, conferred upon,
or delegated to, cities under the Constitution and laws of the Com-
monwealth of Virginia, as fully and completely as though said powers
were specifically enumerated herein, and no enumeration of particular
powers in the charter of the said city, or any amendments thereto, shall
be held to be exclusive; and any governmental function, or functions,
not specifically set forth in the said charter of the city of Hampton, or
any amendment thereto, may be exercised and performed by agree-
ment between the council of the city of Hampton and the board of
supervisors of Elizabeth City county under such arrangements as may
be agreed upon by said council and said board of supervisors.

Section 28. The provisions of this act shall be so interpreted,
applied and construed as to organize and govern the city of Hampton
in the same manner as cities of the second class are organized and gov-
erned as provided by general law, except as herein otherwise provided
and in so far as the provisions of the Constitution prohibit such inter-
pretations, application and construction; and to this end all acts and
parts of acts inconsistent with the provisions of this act are hereby
repealed, amended or modified so far as the same are necessary to make
the government conform to that of a city of the second class under this
act; but in all other respects, where the general law is applicable, the
same shall remain in force.

2. Be it further enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia, That
section twenty-three of the charter of the city of Hampton, as contained
in chapter two hundred and thirty of the Acts of the General Assembly
of nineteen hundred and twenty, approved March sixteenth, nineteen
hundred and twenty, as heretofore amended, be, and the same is hereby
repealed, the purpose of said repeal being to provide that the city of
Hampton shall no longer constitute a separate magisterial and school
district of the county of Elizabeth City, and to enable the city of Hamp-
ton to operate as a city of the second class separate and distinct from,
the said county except as otherwise provided; provided, however, that
the repeal of the said section and the separation of the city of Hampton
from the county of Elizabeth City shall not reduce the minimum
amounts to be allocated for expenditure and expended in the mainte-
nance and improvement, including the construction and reconstruction
of the secondary system of State highways in said county, below the
minimum amount which would have been required to be allocated and
expended for such purpose if the city of Hampton had not been sep-
arated from Elizabeth City county.

3. The foregoing amendments to the charter of the city of Hamp-
ton, Virginia, and the repeal of section twenty-three of the said char-
ter, shall not become effective except as hereinafter provided. A spe-
cial election shall be held in the city of Hampton at such time as may
be fixed by an order of the circuit court of the county of Elizabeth
City, or the judge thereof in vacation, when a resolution of the council
of the city of Hampton, requesting the same, shall be presented to the
said court, or the judge thereof in vacation. Such order shall direct
the electoral board of the said city to take such steps as may be neces-
say to submit to the qualified voters of the city of Hampton, at said
election, the question of whether the said amendments to, and the repeal
of section twenty-three of, the said charter shall become effective as
of midnight on the thirty-first day of December next following the
said election. At such election the persons entitled to vote shall be
those who were qualified to vote at the last preceding general election
held in the said city. The ballots used at such election shall contain in
separate lines the following words:

“For charter amendments”
“Against charter amendments”

Any person voting at said election shall draw a line through one
or the other line of words, and the words remaining shall be counted
as expressing the choice and vote of the person casting the ballot on
the said question. Returns of the election shall be certified by the com-
missions of election or their clerk to the said circuit court, or the judge
thereof in vacation, and an order shall be entered of record setting
forth the result of said election. A copy of the said order shall be
forthwith certified by the clerk of such court to the council of the
city of Hampton for recordation upon the journal. Such election may
be contested and proceedings for such contests shall conform as nearly
as may be to the provisions of section twenty-seven hundred and fifty-
four of the Code of Virginia.

If a majority of the qualified voters voting at said election shall
vote in favor of the charter amendments, then the provisions of this
act with respect to the proposed amendments and the repeal of section
twenty-three of the said charter shall be effective as provided for
herein; but if a majority of such voters shall vote against the charter
amendments, then none of the provisions of this act with respect to the
proposed amendments and the repeal of section twenty-three of the
said charter shall become effective.