48-915. Petition to incur expense; sufficiency

A. Before incurring any expenses for which the district may become liable and that will result in an assessment against one or more lots within the district, the board of directors shall require that there be filed with the clerk a petition signed by property owners as provided by this section.

B. The petition may consist of one or more like or similar instruments filed with the clerk. The sufficiency of the signatures shall be determined by the rules prescribed for determining the sufficiency of protests against the improvement.

C. The petition may be accepted as sufficient by the board of directors if it or its several parts have attached the affidavit of a property owner whose property is subject to assessment for the improvement, stating on oath that the property owner has examined the petition and that the signatures are the genuine signatures of the owners of a majority of the frontage of the property fronting on the proposed improvement or, if the cost of the improvement is proposed to be made chargeable upon an assessment district, the owners of a majority of the frontage of property contained within the limit of the assessment district.

D. Notwithstanding subsection C, if the board of supervisors of a county finds that a proposed assessment by the district is a matter of public health, welfare and safety and on a showing that a reasonable effort has been made by first class mail to contact absentee owners, the board of directors may accept the petition as sufficient if it is signed by the majority of resident and responding absentee owners, as determined by the board of directors, of a majority of the frontage of the property fronting on the proposed improvement or contained within the district, as the case may be. Mailed petitions shall provide for either acceptance or rejection by the owner and shall include a notice stating that only returned petitions will be counted. The absentee owners who are contacted by first class mail have thirty days from the date the mail is postmarked to return the petition. The maximum amount of the proposed assessment under petitions authorized by this subsection shall be no more than one dollar fifty cents per one hundred dollars of assessed valuation.