MONTGOMERY COUNTY. 3659

1929, ch. 169, sec. 12.

965. (A) The Council is authorized and empowered whenever in its
judgment, the public health, safety, or comfort requires it, to grade, con-
struct, reconstruct, pave or otherwise improve any street, sidewalk, alley
and public highway, or parts thereof, at such time and to such extent
and of such materials and in such manner as shall be provided by ordi-
nance and to lay water mains and sewers in said town and to pay the
costs of all such work and assess said cost, or any part thereof, against
the abutting property as hereinafter provided in this section.

(B) Before entering upon the construction of any work or improve-
ment specified herein, the Council shall by ordinance designate the loca-
tion, extent and kind of work or improvement proposed to be done or made,
the kind of materials to be used, the estimated cost of the improvement
and the real property which will be specially benefited thereby and which
it is proposed to assess to pay all or any part of the cost thereof, and shall
fix a time and place when and where the owner or owners of the property
to be so assessed therefor can be heard in reference thereto. Notice of such
hearing, embodying the substance of said ordinance, shall be served upon
the owners of said properties by mailing a copy thereof to their last known
postoffice address of record and by publishing said notice two times in
some newspaper of general circulation in said town, the last publication
to be not leas than three days before said hearing.

(C) If after the hearing the Council shall b© of the opinion that the
public health, safety or comfort requires the work or improvement pro-
posed to be done or made, they shall provide by ordinance for the same
any may charge the expense thereof or any part of such expense against
the property which they shall find to be specially benefited thereby accord-
ing to the lineal frontage of said property; and the Council shall include
as a part of the cost of said work to be assessed against the benefited
property the cost of said work embraced in street intersections and exemp-
tions on corner lots or irregularly shaped lots, the actual interest charges
covering the term of indebtedness on the certificates issued for such public
work and a reasonable percentage for advertising, clerical work and other
miscellaneous expenses in connection with said work, and the items above
stated are hereby declared to be a part of the cost of said public work.
The Council shall also provide in said ordinance the time and terms upon
which payment of said assessments for said work and improvements shall
be made by said property owners, the rate of interest, if any, that shall
be charged upon deferred payments and shall provide penalties for failure
to pay any deferred payment when due. Assessments so levied as afore-
said shall be a lien upon the property against which they are charged
superior to all other liens from the date of the approval of such assess-
ments by the Council.

(D) In the event that provision shall be made for the payment of the
assessments aforesaid in installments, upon a failure to pay any one or
more of said installments when the same shall become due the whole
amount thereof and of such assessment shall immediately become due and