GENERAL PROVISIONS CONCERNING THE ERECTION AND ALTERATION OF COUNTIES, CITIES VILLAGES AND TOWNS. [Title 6, chap. 2, part 1st, Revised Statutes.] SECTION 1. All persons intending to apply to the legislature for the erection of a new county, or for the incorporation of a city or village, or for any alteration of the bounds of any county, city or village, shall cause notice to be published of such intended application, as required by law, and shall also procure an accurate survey and map of the territory described in such application. SEC. 2. Such survey and map shall be duly verified by the oath of the surveyor making the same, and shall be laid before the legisla ture before any such application shall be acted on. SEC. 3. In case any law shall be passed by the legislature, pursuant to such application, the aforesaid survey and map shall be filed in the office of the [state engineer and surveyor] of this state. SEC. 4. No town in this state shall be divided or altered in its bounds; nor shall any new town be erected, without an application to the legislature by the inhabitants of such town so to be divided or altered, or of the several towns out of which such new town is to be erected, or some of them; and notice in writing of such intended application, subscribed by at least five persons, resident and freeholders in such town or towns, shall be affixed on the outer door of the house, where the town meeting is to be held, in each of the towns to be affected thereby, at least ten days previous to the town meeting in each of those towns. SEC. 5. A copy of such notice shall also be read at the town meeting of every town to be affected thereby, to the electors there assembled, by the clerk of the town, immediately before proceeding to the clection of town officers. SEC. 6. The persons applying for the division or alteration of the bounds of any town, or for the erection of a new town, shall also procure such survey and map as is required in the first section of this title, which shall be laid before the legislature, and filed with the surveyor-general, as above provided. (Chap. 194 of the Laws of 1849, as amended by chap. 18 of the Laws of 1871, confers the same powers, as to towns, upon boards of supervisors.) SECTION 1. The boards of supervisors of the several counties in the state, the county of New York excepted, at their annual meeting, shall have power, within their respective counties, by a vote of twothirds of all the members elected, to divide or alter in its bounds any town, or crect a new town, but they shall not make any alterations that shall place parts of the same town in more than one assembly district, nor where it is proposed to divide a town into two or more towns, unless the assent thereto of at least a majority of the taxpayers whose names appear on the assessment roll of the town to be affected thereby, for the year then next preceding, shall be given in writing to such division, upon application to the board, as hereinafter provided, of at least twelve freeholders of each of the towns to be affected by the division, and upon being furnished with said assent in writing, and with a map and survey of the towns to be affected showing the proposed alterations, and, if the application be granted, a copy of said map, with a certified statement of the action of said board thereunto annexed, shall be filed in the office of the secretary of state, and it shall be the duty of the secretary to cause the same to be printed with the laws of the next legislature after such division takes place, and cause the same to be published in the same manner as other laws are published. SEC. 2. Notice in writing of such intended application, subscribed by not less than twelve freeholders of the town or towns to be affected, shall be posted in five of the most public places in each of the towns to be affected thereby for four weeks next previous to such application to the board of supervisors, and a copy of such notice shall also be published, for at least six weeks successively immediately before the meeting of the board of supervisors at which the application is to be made, in all the newspapers printed in the county, not exceeding three in number. SEC. 3. Whenever the board of supervisors shall erect a new town in any county, they shall designate the name thereof, the time and place of holding the first annual town meeting therein, and three electors of such town, whose duty it shall be to preside at such meeting, appoint a clerk, open and keep the polls, and exercise the same powers as justices of the peace when presiding at town meetings, and in case any of the said electors shall refuse or neglect to serve, the electors of the said town, present at such meeting, shall have power to substitute some elector of said town for each one so refusing or neglecting to serve. Notice of the time and place of such town meeting, signed by the chairman or clerk of the board of supervisors, shall be posted in four of the most public places in said town, by the persons so designated to preside [at] such town meeting, at least fourteen days before holding the same. They shall also fix the place for holding the first town meeting in the town or towns from which such new town shall be taken. But nothing in this act shall affect the rights or abridge the term of office of any justice of the peace or other town officer in any such town, whose term of office has not expired. *SEC. 4. The said boards of supervisors shall have power, and they are hereby authorized: SUB. 15. To fix, establish, locate and define disputed boundary lines between the several towns in their respective counties, by a resolution to be duly passed by a majority of all the members elected to such board. A notice of intention to apply to such board, to fix, establish, locate and define such disputed boundary line, particularly describing the same, ard the line, as proposed to be acted upon by such board, signed by the supervisor, town clerk and two or more of the justices of the peace of some one of the towns to be affected by such resolution, shall be published for four weeks successively before the meeting of the board at which such resolution is to be presented, in all the newspapers printed in such county, if not more than three in number, but if they exceed three in number, then in the * As amended by chap. 361, Laws of 1870 |