Chapter 40

Section 31. If a town by-law imposes a duty and affixes a penalty for the neglect or violation thereof, it may also provide that upon such neglect or violation the duty may be performed by officers therein named, at the expense of the person liable to perform the same; and such e…

Section 32. Except to the extent that a zoning by-law may take effect as provided in section five of chapter forty A, before a by-law takes effect it shall be approved by the attorney general or ninety days shall have elapsed without action by the attorney general after the clerk…

Section 32A. The provisions in the charter of a city which accepts this section by vote of its city council, requiring newspaper advertising of certain ordinances and proposed ordinances shall, in case of any ordinance or proposed ordinance, or codification thereof, exceeding in …

Section 32B. A city or town may from time to time publish, distribute or sell compilations of zoning ordinances or by-laws and amendments thereto, certified by the city or town clerk, and effective as of a specified date. The compilations and supplements thereto may include zonin…

Section 33. A copy of all rules and regulations made by town boards or officers for which a penalty is provided by law shall be filed with town clerk within ten days after they take effect.

Section 34. Each town containing more than five thousand inhabitants shall, and any town may, maintain a secure and convenient lockup to which persons arrested without a warrant may be committed; and a magistrate may commit, for further examination, a prisoner charged with a bail…

Section 35. The mayor of each city, except Boston, and in Boston the police commissioner, and the selectmen of each town required to maintain a lockup shall annually, by a writing recorded with the town clerk, appoint a keeper of the lockup, who shall have the care and custody th…

Section 36. Such keeper shall have the power of a police officer and shall receive the compensation to be fixed by the selectmen upon his appointment. For the expenses of detention and support of each person committed, shown by the officer's return to have been actually detained …

Section 36A. Whenever a person is in police custody and commits suicide or dies at a lockup facility established pursuant to the provisions of section thirty-four of chapter forty, or under the jurisdiction of the metropolitan police, or whenever a person in police custody inflic…

Section 36B. Each cell utilized for the detention of persons within a city, town, or state lockup facility which is under the jurisdiction of a local police department or the state police shall have a protective covering of high-impact, transparent wall facing. Such protective co…

Section 36C. All law enforcement officers, as defined in section 1 of chapter 6E, shall be trained in the detection, intervention and prevention of suicide. Said training shall include training in the nature and symptomatology of suicide, training in communicating with suicidal d…

Section 37. Such lockups shall at all reasonable hours be accessible to the state police, sheriffs, constables and police officers for any legal and proper use; and a keeper thereof neglecting to keep it so accessible, or refusing to said officers the use of the same, shall be pu…

Section 37A. The mayor of any city other than a city having a Plan D or Plan E form of charter, the city manager of a city having a Plan D or Plan E charter, and the selectmen of a town, hereinafter called the city or town official, may, if satisfied that a riot or other form of …

Section 38. A city, by a two thirds vote of its city council, ratified by a majority of the voters thereof at an election called for the purpose, or a town, by action of its selectmen, ratified by a majority of its voters present and voting thereon at a town meeting at which the …

Section 39. If the water is conveyed through another town, pipes may be laid through any public ways therein which the board of aldermen or selectmen thereof may designate; and the town laying such pipes shall be liable for damages caused thereby.

Section 39A. A town, by a majority of its voters present and voting thereon at a town meeting at which the voting list shall be used, may establish a water supply or water distributing system and maintain and operate the same, in accordance with sections thirty-nine B to thirty-n…

Section 39B. For the purpose of establishing a water supply or water distributing system as authorized by section thirty-nine A, any town, by its board of water commissioners or selectmen authorized to act as such, may take by eminent domain under chapter seventy-nine, or acquire…

Section 39C. A town may construct and maintain on the lands acquired and held by it under section thirty-nine B proper dams, wells, reservoirs, pumping and filtration plants, buildings, standpipes, tanks, fixtures and other structures, including also purification and treatment wo…

Section 39D. Such a town may enter upon any lands for the purpose of making surveys, test pits and borings, and may take or otherwise acquire the right to occupy temporarily any lands necessary for the construction of any work or for any other purpose authorized by said sections …

Section 39E. The land, water rights and other property taken or acquired under section thirty-nine B, and all works, buildings and other structures erected or constructed under sections thirty-nine C and thirty-nine D, shall be managed, improved and controlled by a board of water…

Section 39F. Any person or corporation injured in his or its property by any action of a town under said sections thirty-nine A to thirty-nine E, inclusive, may recover damages from said town under chapter seventy-nine.

Section 39G. Whoever wilfully or wantonly corrupts, pollutes or diverts any of the waters taken or held under said sections thirty-nine A to thirty-nine E, inclusive, or injures any structure, work or other property owned, held or used by a town under the authority and for the pu…

Section 39H. A city, town, commission or district through its water department, if any, if thereunto authorized by ordinance, or by-law or by vote of its governing body if a commission or district or a water company, as defined in section one of chapter one hundred and sixty-five…

Section 39I. Any person using water supplied by a city, town or district, measured by a meter, shall be entitled to an examination and test of such meter to determine the accuracy of the same in any quarter or period, upon written application therefor, which shall be made before …

Section 39J. In any city or town which accepts the provisions of this section, either by a vote of the city council, board of selectmen, board of water commissioners, or by vote of said city or town in a general election or town meeting, said city or town shall for the purposes o…

Section 39K. (a) Any city or town which accepts the provisions of this section either by a majority vote of the city or town council or by majority vote at an annual town meeting, may establish a drinking water protection district in conjunction with at least one other city or to…

Section 39L. No local body shall charge for water or sewer services on a descending unit rate basis. For the purposes of this section a local body shall be a city, town, district, commission or other political subdivision or instrumentality of the commonwealth which is not within…

Section 39M. (a) Notwithstanding chapter 59 or any other general or special law to the contrary, any city or town, which accepts this section in accordance with subsection (f), may impose a water infrastructure surcharge on real property at a rate up to, but not exceeding, 3 per …

Section 3A. Any recordable instrument purporting to affect an interest in real estate, title to which is held by a city, town, district or regional school district, executed in the name of a town by its selectmen, in the name of a city by its mayor or by its city manager in the c…

Section 4. A city or town may make contracts for the exercise of its corporate powers, on such terms and conditions as are authorized by the town meeting in a town, the town council in a town without a town meeting, the city council in a city with the approval of the mayor or the…

Section 41. Towns and water supply and fire districts duly established by law may, with the consent and approval of the department of environmental protection, given after due notice and a hearing, take by eminent domain under chapter seventy-nine, or acquire by purchase or other…

Section 41A. A board of water commissioners or a board of public works with the duties of water commissioners of a municipality, water supply, fire and water district or water company having control of water supplies may, on behalf of their respective bodies politic or corporate,…

Section 42. The board of aldermen or the selectmen may, upon terms and conditions prescribed by them, authorize the laying of pipes and conduits for the conveyance of water under any public way in their town; provided, that this section shall not authorize any person to supply wa…

Section 42A. If the rates and charges due to a city, town or water district, which accepts this section and sections forty-two B to forty-two F, inclusive, by vote of its city council or of the voters in town or district meeting and, by its clerk, files a certificate of such acce…

Section 42B. Such lien shall take effect by operation of law on the day immediately following the due date of such rate or charge, and, unless dissolved by payment or abatement, shall continue until such rate or charge has been added to or committed as a tax under section forty-t…

Section 42C. If a rate or charge for which a lien is in effect under section forty-two B has not been added to or committed as a tax and remains unpaid when the assessors are preparing a real estate tax list and warrant to be committed by them under section fifty-three of chapter…

Section 42D. Except as otherwise provided, the provisions of chapters fifty-nine and sixty shall apply, so far as pertinent, to all rates and charges certified to the assessors under section forty-two C. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, upon commitment as a tax o…

Section 42E. An owner of real estate aggrieved by a charge imposed thereon under sections forty-two A to forty-two F, inclusive, in addition to such remedy as he may have under section ten of chapter one hundred and sixty-five, may apply for an abatement thereof by filing a petit…

Section 42F. An owner of real estate who, in order to prevent the imposition of a lien thereon or to discharge the same, has paid charges for water furnished to a tenant or other person who was bound to pay the same, may recover from such tenant or other person in an action of co…

Section 42G. Any city, town or district having a water supply or water distributing system which, in the case of a city or town, accepts this section and the two following sections in cities other than Plan E cities by vote of the city council subject to the city charter, or Plan…

Section 42H. A city, town or district having a water supply or water distributing system may provide that assessment for the cost of providing and laying water pipes thereafter in public and private ways shall be made upon the several parcels of land receiving benefit from the la…

Section 42I. Whenever the water commissioners or other officers in charge of the supply and distribution of water in a city, town or district which has accepted sections forty-two G to forty-two I, inclusive, determine to lay water pipes in public and private ways and assessments…

Section 42J. In a city, town or district which accepts the provisions of this section, the board responsible for assessing charges for the use of water under section sixty-nine B of chapter forty-one or any other provision of law, shall, upon the application of the owner of the r…

Section 42K. In a city, town or district which accepts the provisions of this section, the water commissioners may assess betterments in accordance with the provisions of chapter eighty for the construction and connection of water mains and services by a uniform unit method which…

Section 43. The board of aldermen or the selectmen may, upon terms and conditions prescribed by them, authorize the laying of pipes and conduits for the transmission of steam or hot water for heating, cooking and mechanical power, for private use, under any public way in their to…

Section 43A. The board of alderman or the selectmen may, subject to such terms and conditions as they may deem advisable and subject also to such rules and regulations as may be promulgated by the state department of fire services, grant to any person the right to lay, construct,…

Section 44. A town may, at a town meeting, authorize a village or district therein, if it contains not less than one thousand inhabitants, to organize under a name approved by the town for the purpose of erecting and maintaining street lamps, establishing and maintaining librarie…

Section 44A. A city or town, by vote of the council in a city and by vote of the board of selectmen in a town, may create a special unpaid committee to be known as a regional refuse disposal planning committee consisting of 3 persons to be appointed by the board of selectmen in a…

Section 44B. Regional refuse disposal planning committees from any two or more cities or towns may join together to form a regional refuse disposal planning board. Such regional refuse disposal planning board shall study the advisability of establishing a regional refuse disposal…