A. Upon their qualification, the board shall prepare or cause to be prepared a plan for the improvements for which the district was created. Such plan shall include such maps, profiles, plans and other data and descriptions as may be necessary to set forth properly the location and character of the work, and of the property benefited or taken or damaged, with estimates of cost and specifications for doing the work.

B. In case the board finds that any former survey made by any other district or in any other manner is useful for the purposes of the district, it may take over the data secured by such survey or such other proceedings as may be useful to it, and may pay therefor an amount equal to the value of such data to said district.

C. Upon the completion of such plan, the board of directors shall hold a hearing thereon to hear objections thereto, shall cause notice thereof to be given by publication in each county into which said district may extend and shall permit the inspection thereof at the office of the district by all interested. Said notice shall fix the time and place for the hearing of all objections to said plan not less than twenty (20) days nor more than thirty (30) days after the last publication of said notice. All objections to said plan shall be in writing and filed with the secretary at the office of the district not more than ten (10) days after the last publication of said notice.

D. After said hearing before the board, the board shall adopt a plan as the official plan of said district. If, however, any person or public corporation objects to said official plan, so adopted, then such person or public corporation may within ten (10) days from the adoption of said official plan, file in the office of the clerk in the original case establishing the district, their objections in writing, specifying the features of the plan to which objection is made, and thereupon the court, shall fix a day for the hearing thereof before the court, not less than twenty (20) nor more than thirty (30) days after the time fixed for filing objections, at which time the court shall hear said objections and adopt, modify, reject or refer back said plan to said board.

E. If the court should reject said plan, then the board shall proceed as in the first instance under this section to prepare another plan. If the court should refer back said plan to the board for amendment, then the court shall continue the hearing to a day certain without publication of notice. When the court shall approve a plan as the official plan of said district, then a certified copy of the order of the court approving the same shall be filed with the secretary and by him incorporated into the records of the district.

F. The official plan may be altered in detail from time to time until the assessment record herein provided is filed, and of all such alterations the appraisers shall take notice. But after the assessment record has been filed in court, no alterations of the official plan shall be made except as provided in Section 412 [73-15-12 NMSA 1978].

History: Laws 1927, ch. 45, § 305; C.S. 1929, § 30-305; 1941 Comp., § 77-2715; 1953 Comp., § 75-28-15.

Constitutionality of power to take over community ditch. — It is within the power of the conservancy district to take over a community ditch, making appropriate compensation therefor, which power is not in violation of N.M. Const., art. XVI, § 1. Gutierrez v. Middle Rio Grande Conservancy Dist., 1929-NMSC-071, 34 N.M. 346, 282 P. 1, cert. denied, 280 U.S. 610, 50 S. Ct. 158, 74 L. Ed. 653 (1930).

Effect of absence of objections within time limit. — In the absence of objections within the limit of time prescribed, all parties and property within the area are bound by the plan adopted by the conservancy district. Middle Rio Grande Conservancy Dist. v. Chavez, 1940-NMSC-016, 44 N.M. 240, 101 P.2d 190.

Tax authorities must look to land alone to satisfy outstanding obligations resulting from conservancy district assessments and a new purchaser of state lands would not become personally liable for assessments already accrued, but he would take the lands burdened with a lien for the assessments. 1942 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 42-4090.