US Laws, Codes, Statutes & Cases

 
  § 1405. Soldiers' monument corporations.
    (a)  Property; erection of monuments.
    A  corporation  formed  for  the purpose of erecting and maintaining a
  monument  or  memorial,  including  a  memorial  hall  or  building   to
  perpetuate  the  memory of persons who served in the armed forces of the
  United Colonies or of the United States in the  Revolutionary  War,  the
  Civil  War,  or  in  any  other  war in which the United States has been
  engaged may acquire and hold real property necessary for  its  corporate
  purposes,  and  may  erect any such monument, monuments or memorial upon
  any public street, square or ground of any town, city or  village,  with
  the  consent  of  the proper officers thereof, or may purchase or accept
  the donation of land suitable for that purpose; and may  take  and  hold
  the  property  given, devised or bequeathed to it in trust, to apply the
  same or the income or proceeds thereof for  the  erection,  improvement,
  embellishment,  preservation,  repair,  renewal, care and maintenance of
  such monument, monuments or memorial, or of  any  structure,  fences  or
  walks  upon  its  lands,  or  for planting or cultivating trees, shrubs,
  flowers and plants, in and around or upon its lands, or for improving or
  embellishing the same in any  manner  consistent  with  the  design  and
  purposes  of  the  association,  according  to  the terms of such grant,
  devise or bequest.  It may take by gift or purchase any lots or lands in
  any cemetery to be used and  occupied  exclusively  for  the  burial  of
  honorably  discharged  members  of the armed forces who served in any of
  such wars, and for the  erection  of  suitable  monuments  or  memorials
  therein.
    (b)  Type of corporation.
    A soldiers' monument corporation is a Type B corporation.
    (c)  Town and village aid.
    The  town  clerk of a town or the board of trustees of a village, upon
  the petition of  twenty-five  resident  taxpayers,  shall  submit  to  a
  biennial  town  meeting  or  village  election,  as  the  case may be, a
  proposition to raise by taxation a sum  stated  therein,  not  exceeding
  five hundred dollars in any one year, to be spent during the fiscal year
  for  which  such tax is to be levied, for the purpose of erecting such a
  monument, or contributing to the expense of such a monument, erected  by
  a corporation specified in this article, or for repairing, improving and
  maintaining  the  same  and  the  grounds thereof; and such tax shall be
  levied in the manner prescribed by law for levying general taxes in such
  town or village, and when  raised  shall  be  applied  to  the  purposes
  specified in such proposition.
    (d)  Exemptions.
    The  property  of  a  corporation  specified  in  this section or of a
  corporation formed under the laws of  eighteen  hundred  and  sixty-six,
  chapter  two  hundred  and seventy-three, as amended by laws of eighteen
  hundred and eighty-eight, chapter two hundred and ninety-nine, shall  be
  exempt from levy and sale on execution, and from all public taxes, rates
  and  assessments,  and  no street, road, avenue or thoroughfare shall be
  laid through the  lands  of  such  association  held  for  the  purposes
  aforesaid  without  the  consent  of  the  trustees of such corporation,
  except by special permission of the legislature of the state.
    (e)  Improvement taxes.
    A tax may be levied and collected on the taxable property in  a  town,
  village  or city in which such monument, monuments or other memorial may
  be erected, for the purpose of repairing or improving the same  and  the
  grounds  thereof;  and such tax shall be levied in the manner prescribed
  by law for levying general taxes in such town, village or city.
    (f)  Transfer of property from unincorporated association.
    Any unincorporated association organized solely for one or more of the
  purposes set forth in paragraph (a)  by  a  majority  vote  of  all  its
  members  present  at  a  meeting  thereof,  called  as  in  this section
  provided, may transfer to  and  vest  in  any  incorporated  association
  created  by  general or special law having like objects any or all money
  or other property which it shall have accumulated for such objects,  but
  the property so transferred shall be used exclusively for one or more of
  the  purposes  mentioned in such paragraph.  A vote upon the question of
  transferring the funds or property of  such  unincorporated  association
  shall  be  had  only  at  a  meeting of such association called for that
  purpose by the president or secretary or other managing officer thereof,
  upon notice stating the object of the  meeting  of  at  least  ten  days
  before  the time fixed for such meeting, served personally or by mail on
  each member of the association within the United States whose  residence
  or post office address is known.