The owner or owners in fee of any real property constituting a portion of the district may file with the board a petition praying that such lands be excluded and taken from said district. Petition shall describe the property which the petitioners desire to have excluded. Such petition must be acknowledged in the same manner and form as required in case of a conveyance of land and be accompanied by a deposit of money sufficient to pay all costs of the exclusion proceedings. The secretary of the board shall cause a notice of filing of such petition to be published in the county in which said property or the major portion thereof, is located. The notice shall state the filing of such petition, the names of petitioners, description of the property mentioned in said petition and the prayer of said petitioners; and it shall notify all persons interested to appear at the office of said board at the time named in said notice, showing cause in writing, if any they have, why said petition should not be granted. The board at the time and place mentioned in the notice, or at the time or times at which the hearing of said petition may be adjourned, shall proceed to hear the petition and all objections thereto, presented in writing by any person showing cause as aforesaid, why the prayer of the petition should not be granted. The filing of such petition shall be deemed and taken as an assent by each and all such petitioners to the exclusion from the district of the property mentioned in the petition, or any part thereof. The board, if it deems it not for the best interests of the district that the property mentioned in the petition, or portion thereof, shall be excluded from the district, shall order that said petition be denied; but if it deems it for the best interest of the district that the property mentioned in the petition, or some portion thereof, be excluded from the district, then the board may order the property mentioned in the petition or some portion thereof, excluded from the district. Upon allowance of such petition, the board shall file a certified copy of the order of the board making such change with the clerk of the court and upon order of the court said property shall be excluded from the district.

History: 1941 Comp., § 77-3422, enacted by Laws 1943, ch. 80, § 22; 1953 Comp., § 75-18-22.

Bracketed material. — The bracketed material was inserted by the compiler and is not part of the law.

Cross references. — For publication of legal notice, see Chapter 14, Article 11 NMSA 1978.

For acknowledgments, see Chapter 14, Article 13 NMSA 1978.