Article 2. Hearing of California Public Utilities Code >> Division 7. >> Chapter 2. >> Article 2.

By resolution each board of supervisors to which a petition is presented shall fix a time for a hearing, which shall be within 15 days after final publication of notice.

Within 10 days after a petition is presented to it, the board of supervisors shall publish a copy of the petition, and a notice that the petition will be heard by the board at the time and place designated by the resolution.

The hearing may be adjourned from time to time for the determination of facts, not exceeding two weeks in all.

If the signatures attached to the petition are sufficient, no defect in the contents of the petition or in the title to or form of the notice shall vitiate any proceedings thereon.

The publication of notice shall be pursuant to Section 6062 of the Government Code in a newspaper of general circulation, printed, published, and circulated in the respective unit of the unincorporated territory, or if no such newspaper is printed, published, and circulated in the territory, in a newspaper printed and published elsewhere in the county and deemed most likely to give notice to the electors of the territory.

At the hearing or at any time prior thereto, any owner of taxable property within the proposed district may file a petition with the board of supervisors asking that the property described in the petition be excluded from the proposed district. If the board, after hearing, finds the described property will not be substantially benefited by its inclusion in the district, it may exclude such property. At the hearing the board shall make such changes in the proposed boundaries as it deems advisable and shall define and establish the boundaries.

Any person owning land adjoining any land described in the petition, upon his verified application, in the discretion of the board, may have his land included within the proposed district.

At the hearing the board shall determine whether or not the petition complies with the requirements set forth in this division and whether or not the notice has been published as required, and shall hear all competent and relevant testimony offered in support of or in opposition to the petition. If the board determines and finds from the evidence taken at the hearing that the proposed district as its boundaries are described in the petition or as changed by the board is uneconomic or infeasible, it may dismiss the petition, but, if the board determines and finds that the petition complies with the law and that the proposed district is economic and feasible, it shall call an election to be held in the proposed district for the purpose of determining whether or not the district shall be organizaed.