MARVIN MANDEL, Governor

2255

bills for collection each year (subject to discount and
interest allowances or charges as new provided by law for
Queen Anne's County taxes on real property) without
interest or discount and upon failure of payment of said
benefit assessments, they may be deducted from any
surplus in the hands of the Collector of State and County
Taxes for Queen Anne's County 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.

(d)   Before the powers granted by this section to
the County Commissioners shall be exercised there shall
first be the petition of property owners as hereinbefore
provided requesting improvements; public hearing upon
said petition after ten days' notice in a newspaper
regularly published in Queen Anne's County; approval of
said petition by the County Commissioners; and the
passage of an appropriate ordinance, 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 said improvements, or any reasonable
portion thereof, as determined by the County
Commissioners; provided that no assessment 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.

(e)    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
Queen Anne's County within thirty days after the final
adoption of the ordinance by the County Commissioners,
and such court, sitting without a jury, is authorized to
hear and determine whether the County Commissioners acted
pursuant to the authority granted herein and whether the
benefit assessments levied pursuant to the provisions of
this sub—title are imposed according to law.

(f)    The authority extended to the County
Commissioners by this section shall be in addition to,
but not in substitution of, the powers heretofore vested
in them for the improvement of roads in Queen Anne's
County.]

SECTION 2. AND BE FURTHER ENACTED, That new Section
22-11 be and it is hereby added to the Public Local Laws
of Queen Anne's County being Article 18 of the Public
Local Laws of Maryland (1974 Edition, as amended) to read
as follows:

Article 18

22-11.