in execution of any of the powers of the Board; and the members of the Board may apply any moneys in their hands for the purpose of indemnifying themselves against any losses, costs, or damages they may incur in execution of the powers granted to them. (1) 4. PROCEEDINGS OF HIGHWAY BOARDS. Their Meetings. The Board shall meet for the despatch of business, and shall from time to time make such regulations with respect to the summoning, notice, place, management, and adjournment of such meetings, and generally with respect to the transaction and management of business, including the quorum at meetings of the Board, as they think fit, subject to the following conditions. The first meeting after the formation of the district shall be held at the time and place fixed by the order of the justices in that behalf. (m) Though if any Highway Board make default in holding its first meeting, the Board shall not thereupon become disqualified from acting, but the justices in general or quarter sessions shall, on the application of any person liable to pay highway rates within the district, make such order as they think fit for the holding of the Board at some other time. Any order so made shall be deemed to be an order capable of being removed in the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice, in pursuance of the 12 and 13 Vict. c. 45, and may be enforced accordingly. The costs of any such application to the Court of Quarter Sessions shall be defrayed out of the district fund of the Board. (n) One ordinary meeting shall be held in each period of four months, and of such meetings one shall be held on some day between the seventh and fourteenth days of April. An extraordinary meeting may be summoned at any time, on the requisition of three members of the Board, addressed to the Clerk of the Board. (m) (1) 25 & 26 Vict. c. 61, s. 9. (m) 27 & 28 Vict. c. 101, s. 27 and sch, 1. Quorum and Voting at Meetings. The quorum to be fixed by the Board shall consist of not less than three members. Every question shall be decided by a majority of votes of the members voting on that question. The names of the members present at a meeting shall be recorded. (o) In case of an equality of votes at any meeting the chairman for the time being of such meeting shall have a second or casting vote. (0) Chairman and Vice-Chairman. The Board shall at the first meeting, and afterwards from time to time at their first meeting after each annual appointment of members of the Board as hereafter mentioned, appoint one of their members to be chairman and one other of their members to be a vice-chairman for the year following such choice. (0) If any casual vacancy occur in the office of chairman or vice-chairman, the Board shall, as soon as they conveniently can after the occurrence of such vacancy, choose some member of their number to fill such vacancy; and every such chairman or vice-chairman so elected as last aforesaid shall continue in office so long only as the person in whose place he may be so elected would have been entitled to continue if such vacancy had not happened. (o) If at any meeting the chairman is not present at the time appointed for holding the same, the vice-chairman shall be the chairman of the meeting; and if neither the chairman nor vice-chairman shall be present, then the members present shall choose some one of their number to be a chairman of such meeting. (0) Orders and Precepts of Board. All orders of the Board for payment of money, and all precepts issued by the Board, shall be deemed to be duly executed if signed by two or more members of the Board (0) 27 & 28 Vict. c. 101, s. 27 and sch. 1. authorized to sign them by a resolution of the Board, and countersigned by the Clerk; but it shall not be necessary in any legal proceeding to prove that the members signing any such order or precept were authorized to sign them, and such authority shall be presumed until the contrary is proved. (p) Summonses and Notices. Any summons or notice, or any writ or any proceeding, at law or in equity, requiring to be served upon the Board, may be served by the same being left at or transmitted through the post in a prepaid letter directed to the office of the Board, or being given personally to the district surveyor or Clerk of the Board. (2) Any notice in respect of which no other mode of service is provided by the Highway Board in pursuance of powers in that behalf conferred on them, and any precept, summons, or order issued by the Board, may be served,By delivery of the same personally on the party required to be served; or, by leaving the same at the usual or last known place of abode of such party as aforesaid; or, by forwarding the same by post as a prepaid letter addressed to the usual or last known place of abode of such party. In proving service of a document by post it shall be sufficient to prove that the document was properly directed, and that it was put as a prepaid letter into the post-office; and in serving notice on the overseers or the waywardens (if more than one) of any parish it shall be sufficient to serve the same on any one of such officers in a parish. (r) Minutes of Proceedings of Board to be received in Evidence. Any minute made of proceedings at meetings of the Board or of Committees of the Board, if signed by any person purporting to be the chairman of the Board or Committee, either at the meeting of the Board or Committee of the Board at which the proceedings took place, or at the next ensuing meeting of the Board or Committee, shall be receivable in evidence in all legal proceedings (p) 27 & 28 Vict. c. 101, s. 27 and sch. 1. (g) 25 & 26 Vict. c. 61, s. 42. (r) 27 & 28 Vict. c. 101, s. 26. without further proof; and until the contrary is proved every meeting of the Board or Committee in respect of the proceedings of which minutes have been so made shall be deemed to have been duly convened and held, and all the members thereof to have been duly qualified. (8) 5. ELECTION OF WAYWARDENS. Annual Election. In every parish forming part of a highway district, which is not a rural sanitary district of which the sanitary authority have become the Highway Board, there shall be elected every year for the year next ensuing a waywarden, or such number of waywardens as may be determined by order of the justices (t); and waywardens shall continue in office till the 30th April in the year following the year in which they were elected, and on that day their successors shall come into office. (u) A waywarden shall be re-eligible. (t) Such waywarden or waywardens shall be elected in every parish forming part of a highway district at the meeting and time and in the manner and subject to the same qualification and the same power of appointment in the justices in the event of no election taking place, or in the event of a vacancy, at, in, and subject to which a person or persons to serve the office of surveyor would have been chosen or appointed under the 5 & 6 Wm. IV. c. 50, if this Act had not passed. (t) The justices shall in their provisional order make provision for the election of a waywarden or waywardens in places where no surveyor or surveyors were elected previously to the place forming part of a highway district. (t) Certificate as to Election. Every waywarden, before taking his seat as a member of a Highway Board, shall produce a certificate of his having been duly elected or appointed a waywarden, and such certificate shall, in the case of an elected waywarden, be signed by the chairman of the vestry or other meeting (8) 25 & 26 Vict. c. 61, s. 9. (t) 25 & 26 Vict. c. 61, s. 10; and 41 & 42 Vict. c. 77, s. 4. (u) 41 & 42 Vict. c. 77, s. 11. at which he was elected; and in the case of a waywarden appointed by justices, be signed by the justices making the appointment. (v) Vote of Waywarden. A waywarden may sit as such for more places than one, but he shall be entitled to one vote only as waywarden. (w) 6. APPOINTMENT AND DUTIES OF OFFICERS. Clerk, Treasurer, and Surveyors. The Highway Board shall, at their first meeting or at some adjournment thereof, by writing under their seal, or by a minute of the Board signed by the chairman and countersigned by the Clerk of the Board (27 & 28 Vict. c. 101, s. 30), appoint a treasurer, clerk, and district surveyor; they may also at any meeting, if they think fit, appoint an assistant, surveyor; and they may from time to time remove any of such officers, and appoint others in the room of such as may be so removed, or as may die or resign; they may also, out of any moneys in their hands, pay such salaries as they think reasonable to the clerk, and district and assistant surveyor, and to the treasurer, if they think necessary. Before the treasurer enters upon his office the Board shall take sufficient security from him for the due performance of the duties of his office. No appointment, however, except the first, to any of the offices above specified shall be made unless notice in writing has been sent to every member of the Board. (x) Any two or more Highway Boards may unite in appointing and paying the salary of a district surveyor, who shall in relation to the district of each of the Boards by whom he is appointed have all the powers and duties of a district surveyor under the Highway Acts. (y) If the Highway Board make default in appointing a treasurer, clerk, and district surveyor, or any of such officers, in pursuance of the "Highway Act, 1862," within three months after the day fixed by the justices for the holding of the first meeting of the Board, or within three (v) 27 & 28 Vict. c. 101, s. 19. (x) 25 & 26 Vict. c. 61, s. 12. (w) Ibid. s. 19. (y) 41 & 42 Vict. c. 77, s. 6. |