Marvin Mandel, Governor                         1607

benefit charges among the Land Records of Frederick County under
the supervision of the Clerk of the Circuit Court, and the recordation
with said Clerk of the benefit assessments shall be legal notice of the
liens.

38-7.

The County Commissioners shall, on or before January 1, of each
year, certify its benefit assessments hereunder to the Treasurer of
Frederick County for collection from the property owners affected,
and the Treasurer shall add the benefit assessments to the State and
county property tax bills for collection each year without interest
or discount and upon failure of payment of the benefit assessments,
they may be deducted from any surplus in the hands of the Treasurer
after a sale for non-payment of State and county property taxes
under proper order of the Circuit Court. In the alternative, the lien
created by the annual benefit assessments may be enforced by bill in
equity or by action in personam.

38-8.

Before the powers granted by this section to the County Commis-
sioners shall be exercised there shall first be the petition of property
owners as hereinbefore provided requesting improvements; pub-
lic hearing upon the petition after ten days' notice in a newspaper
regularly published in Frederick County; approval of the petition by
the County Commissioners; and the passage of an appropriate ordi-
nance, pursuant to the authority of this section, setting forth the
improvements being constructed, the property owners affected, and
all material terms of the annual benefit assessments levied to pay the
cost of the improvements, or any reasonable portion thereof, as de-
termined by the County Commissioners; provided that no assess-
ment shall exceed the total assessed value of the property, excluding
any improvements thereon, after giving effect to benefits accruing
thereto from the improvement for which assessed.

38-9.

Any interested person feeling aggrieved by the levying of any
benefit assessment under this section shall have the right to appeal
to the Circuit Court for Frederick County within thirty days after
the final adoption of the ordinance by the County Commissioners, and
this court, sitting without a jury, is authorized to hear and deter-
mine whether the County Commissioners acted pursuant to the au-
thority granted herein and whether the benefit assessments levied
pursuant to the provisions of this act are imposed according to law.

38-10.

The authority extended to the County Commissioners by this sec-
tion shall be in addition to, but not in substitution of, the powers
heretofore vested in them for the improvement of roads in Frederick
County.

Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That this Act shall take effect
July 1, 1972.

Approved May 26, 1972.