DIGEST OF THE ORDINANCES OF THE CITY OF ST. LOUIS. (No. 4872.) ASSESSMENT AND CENSUS. AN ORDINANCE ESTABLISHING A BOARD OF ASSESSORS, AND REGULATING THE ASSESSMENT OF PROPERTY SUBJECT TO TAXATION; ALSO PROVIDING FOR TAKING THE CENSUS. ARTICLE I. Assessment. 1. Mayor to appoint assessors; the time of their appointment; to person in whose name it is recorded. their qualifications; to consti- § 4. Assessment list of preceding tute a board; how selected. 2. President of the board, when to enter on his duties; assistants, when to enter on their duties. 3. Duties of president of the board, to prepare and correct plats of the city, procure abstract of conveyances from recorder made during preceding year, and change plats to accord therewith; shall advertise in two English and one German papers, requesting persons to call and give description of property; shall certify the number of abstracts so procured and amount for advertising; property to be assessed year to be delivered by auditor to president of board, when; when to be returned by him to the auditor. 5. Duties of board of assessors in assessing and listing property. 6. List of taxable property, how arranged. 7. President of the board to deter mine which portion of the city each assessor is to attend to, and each assessor responsible for his assessment. 8. Board of assessors to assess real estate, how. 9. Value of improvements, &c., to be determined by the assessor. 19. 10. Assessor may demand of eve. 11. If owner of property unknown, 12. If there has been a failure to assess property for any previous year, assessor to assess the ing, with specific statement 20. Auditor to extend lists; assessor 22. President of board to attend 23. How error in quantity of real estate and assessment of personal property to be corrected. 24. Collectors to report to president changes of owners of real estate. 25. Term of office. 26. President may employ clerk of the board; if additional clerks are required, may be appointed temporarily; how; their compensation, &c. Be it ordained by the Common Council of the City of St. Louis, as follows: SECTION 1. At the first stated session of the common council in each year, it shall be the duty of the mayor to appoint, by and with the consent of the board of common council, five competent men as assessors, each of whom shall have resided in the city at least five years next preceding their appointment, and at least one year in the district from which they shall be selected; and the persons so appointed shall constitute a board of assessors, one of whom shall be president of said board, and appointed as such, and they shall be selected as follows: one from the first or second ward, one from the third or fourth ward, one from the fifth or sixth ward, one from the seventh or eighth ward, and one from the ninth or tenth ward; this section not to take effect until the first day of June, eighteen hundred and sixty-one. SEC. 2. The president of the board shall enter upon the discharge of his duties on the first Monday of September in each year; the other four assessors shall enter upon the discharge of their duties on the first Monday of October. SEC. 3. The president of the board of assessors shall, on and after the first Monday in October in each year, proceed to prepare and correct the plats of the city; and shall, immediately after the passage of this ordinance, procure from the recorder of the county of St. Louis an abstract of all transfers of property within the city filed and recorded from the day of the date of the taking and completion of the last city assessment, and enter the same alphabetically in a suitable register to be kept in the assessor's office as a record therein; the names of the purchaser and vender to be suitably columned, the date of the transfer, the description of the property, the amount of the consideration, with such brief remarks in the last marginal column as in the president's view may be necessary and useful; he shall change. the plats of the city to correspond with such conveyances, and make such other preparations as will enable the board of assessors to proceed to assess the property within the limits. of the whole city on and after the first Monday of October following, as hereinafter provided; he shall also, by advertisement in two English and one German newspaper of this city, request all persons who may own or have charge of any real estate in the city, to call at his office at the city hall, and give a correct description of such property; he shall also certify to the city auditor the number of abstracts procured from said recorder, as aforesaid, and also the amount of said. advertising, to be paid out of the appropriation [for] contingencies. No assessment shall be made by any assessor of real estate in the city of St. Louis in the name of any person whose name does not appear from the records of the county of St. Louis as the owner of such real estate. SEC. 4. On the first Monday of September in each year, the city auditor shall deliver to the president of the board of assessors, the entire preceding assessment lists of the city, which lists shall be returned to the auditor within six months. SEC. 5. The board of assessors shall, on the first Monday of October succeeding their appointment, proceed to examine and assess all property within the city subject to taxation at its cash value, the value of all real estate to be determined by a majority of the assessors; and shall make out, in suitable books, one from each ward, (two of which books shall be made out by each of the assessors,) a list of all such property, and of persons chargeable with a poll tax, describing in separate columns the property, and where the same is real estate, giving the quantity, metes and bounds thereof, and the value of the ground and that of the improvements separately; and shall charge all personal property to the owner, according to the rate where located, with his real estate, if he has any; and when real estate is leased, the owner thereof shall be authorized to list with the assessors in such proportions as it is leased. SEC. 6. Said lists shall be arranged by blocks, according to their numerical order on the city map in the city engineer's office; and opposite the name of each person who pays a polltax shall be stated the street and number of the house in which such person resides, if the same be numbered, otherwise such designation as will enable the collector readily to find the person; and each list shall be made out in a separate book for each ward, as shall also the census of the city; and the lists shall be so arranged as to distinguish the property and other taxes in the old, new, and new extended limits of the city separately. SEC. 7. The president of the board of assessors shall, in assessing property, determine as to the portions of the city which the assessors shall attend to in discharging their duties; and each assessor shall be responsible for a correct assessment of the personal property, and also a correct list of the real estate in the two adjoining wards apportioned to him to assess. SEC. 8. The board of assessors shall, after they have each separately assessed all the personal property as aforesaid, and examined the real estate and listed the same with the owners thereof, proceed jointly to assess all the real estate in the city, the value of which [is] to be determined on the premises by a majority of the assessors in case of disagreement. SEC. 9. The value of the improvements, buildings, manufacturing establishments and their machinery, and so forth, shall be fixed and determined by the assessors. SEC. 10. Either of the aforesaid assessors is authorized to demand of every person owning or having charge of any taxable property, as agent, guardian, curator, trustee, or otherwise, a list of such property, with such description as will enable him to list and assess the same; and if any person refuse to show the assessor, when called on, all such taxable property, then the assessor shall proceed to assess the same according to his best judgment, and shall add twenty per cent. to said assessment as a penalty for such refusal. SEC. 11. If either of the assessors find property within the city, the owner of which is unknown, he shall apply at the county recorder's office for the requisite information, and take such other measures as may be in his power to obtain the same; failing in which, he shall mark the property as that of an owner unknown. SEC. 12. If any of the assessors shall discover any taxable property which has not been assessed in any previous year, the same shall be assessed for each year in which it was not assessed, at the value thereof when the same should have been given in, and the assessor shall note the same upon his books. SEC. 13. The president of the board of assessors shall exercise a general superintendence and direction over the manner in which the assessment shall be made, and also the making out of the books, or lists of property as aforesaid, which shall |