Public Utilities - Historical Notes

The following act is included for historical purposes.

Private Acts of 1937, Chapter 684, established a drainage district to be known as the Cherry Bottom Drainage District in the Fifth Civil District of Humphreys County. John W. Daniel, W. L. Cudef and J. D. Bone were named as the initial Board of Directors until their successors were elected by the land holders of the District to two year terms. The Directors would have general control and management of the business affairs of the District, and would be vested with authority to make contracts for the maintenance, upkeep and improvement of a large drainage ditch and lateral tributaries that ran through the District from north to south then being constructed by the Works Progress Administration. The adjoining landowners were required to construct water gates and to keep the ditches on their land free from obstructions. The Directors would receive $2 per day compensation for up to ten days per year for inspecting the ditches, and they would set the compensation of their employees. A special tax of up to $1 per $100 property valuation would be levied for two years against the lands in the district to repay the investors in the project, and thereafter a tax of up to 25 cents per $100 property valuation would be levied in the District for the upkeep and maintenance of the project. This Act was declared unconstitutional as an unlawful delegation of the taxing power in Humphreys County v. Burch, 179 Tenn 562, 167 S.W.2d 992 (1943).