Any territory in which a proceeding has been instituted or is pending for the construction of a single or joint or interstate county ditch, or township ditch, or underground drain, or levee, or county sewer, or for the cleaning of drains and watercourses, or for the removal of drift, or for the drainage of marshes, or for any sewer district outside of a municipal corporation, organized under any other law of this state, may become a conservancy district or subdistrict under sections 6101.01 to 6101.84, inclusive, of the Revised Code, or may be absorbed in and amalgamated with any conservancy district in the following manner:

When the officials in charge of any such improvement or the board of directors of any conservancy district which desires to annex or absorb such territory petitions the court in which such conservancy district was organized, or the court having jurisdiction over all or part of the territory affected by the proceeding which is desired to bring under such sections, for an order making the territory affected by any of the improvements above noted a conservancy district or subdistrict under such sections, or for amalgamating such territory with an existing conservancy district, the clerk of the court shall give notice of the pendency of said petition and of a hearing thereon in the same manner as provided for notice and hearing on a petition for the organization of a conservancy district. At the time of such hearing the court shall hear the evidence and shall grant the petition or deny the same as seems most advantageous to all the interests affected thereby. The court in its order shall specify whether such territory shall be organized into a conservancy district or subdistrict, or whether it shall be absorbed in or amalgamated with an existing conservancy district. Thereafter the territory affected by said order and the improvements for which said territory was assessed, or for which contracts have been let therein, shall be subject to sections 6101.01 to 6101.84, inclusive, of the Revised Code, and all such orders and procedures shall be had as are necessary for fulfilling the requirements of such sections. No order of the court shall be made under this section which shall lessen the security of any issue of bonds or other obligations issued under this section or any other statute.

If a proceeding sought to be joined to or amalgamated with a proceeding under sections 6101.01 to 6101.84, inclusive, of the Revised Code, is under the jurisdiction of a court of common pleas other than the one having jurisdiction of the conservancy district, then at such hearing the judge or judges of the court of common pleas of the county or counties in which such ditch or other improvement is located shall sit with the judge in whose county the district was established. A majority of those sitting shall be necessary to a decision, and from such decision or from a failure to decide appeal may be taken.

Effective Date: 10-01-1953 .