Reclamation districts: improvement districts: formation.

(1) Existing law authorizes the owners of 12 or more of any body of swamp and overflowed lands, salt marsh, or tidelands, or other lands subject to flood or overflow, to petition the county board of supervisors to form a reclamation district for specified purposes. Existing law authorizes, among other things, a reclamation district to levy and collect assessments on parcels in the district under specified circumstances for purposes of raising funds for the maintenance, repair, and operation of district reclamation works. This bill would authorize the board of directors of a reclamation district to form an improvement district to incur a bonded indebtedness for the acquisition, construction, completion, or repair of improvements, works, or property to be payable from taxes levied upon less than all of the lands within the reclamation district. The bill would prescribe certain procedures for the creation of the improvement district and for the levying of improvement district assessments, including, respectively, specified notice, hearing, and election provisions. (2) Existing law, the Improvement Act of 1911, Municipal Improvement Act of 1913, and Improvement Bond Act of 1915 authorize and prescribe procedures for cities and counties, and, in some cases, other public entities, to issue bonds secured by assessments on real property in order to finance the cost of certain improvements to property within their boundaries, including, among other improvements, constructing or maintaining streets, drains, sewers, bridges, and levees. These acts also prescribe procedures for the redemption of bonds and payment of interest on the bonds. This bill would authorize a reclamation district to use, in its discretion, the provisions and procedures of these acts for the construction of any facilities that the reclamation district is otherwise authorized to construct under existing law.