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Gov. Code, § 53382 · Article 4. Powers of a District

Gov. Code, § 53382

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

A district may exercise all of the following powers:

(a) Acquire real or personal property of every kind within the district, by grant, purchase, gift, devise, lease, or eminent domain. The power of eminent domain shall be exercised in accordance with the requirements of Title 7 (commencing with Section 1230.010) of Part 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure. In exercising that power, the district shall, in addition to the damage for the taking, injury, or destruction of property, also pay for the cost of removal, reconstruction, or relocation of any structure, railways, mains, pipes, conduits, wires, cables, or poles of any public utility which are required to be relocated.

(b) Act as trustee under any trust incidental to the purposes of the district, and receive, hold, administer, and expend funds and property subject to the trust.

(c) Sell, assign, convey, exchange, lease, mortgage, encumber, transfer upon trust, or otherwise dispose of real or personal property.

(d) Invest and reinvest funds of the district in a prudent manner.

(e) Borrow money, contract debts, and issue bonds, notes, and debentures pursuant to Article 6 (commencing with Section 53387).

(f) Perform any work, construction, or operation under its own superintendence or contract for the performance of that work by others, as authorized by law.

(g) Make contracts for any and all purposes necessary or convenient for the full exercise of its powers.

(h) Exercise the right of perpetual succession.

(i) Adopt and affix a seal.

(j) Levy assessments and issue bonds pursuant to the Improvement Act of 1911, (Division 7 (commencing with Section 5000) of the Streets and Highways Code), the Improvement Bond Act of 1915, (Division 10 (commencing with Section 8500) of the Streets and Highways Code), and the Municipal Improvement Act of 1913, (Division 12 (commencing with Section 10000) of the Streets and Highways Code). The district may also impose a special tax and issue bonds pursuant to the Mello-Roos Community Facilities Act of 1982, (Chapter 2.5 (commencing with Section 53311)), or impose fees or charges. The amount of any fee or charge shall not exceed the amount reasonably necessary to cover the cost of providing the service for which the fee or charge is imposed. The provisions of those principal acts shall govern all proceedings relating to the levy of the assessments, the issuance of bonds, and the retirement of the bonds under any of those principal acts.

(k) Issue senior obligation bonds as authorized by this chapter.

(l) Adopt regulations governing the use of district facilities and property.

(m) Enter into joint powers agreements in accordance with Chapter 5 (commencing with Section 6500) of Division 7 of Title 1.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 1986, Ch. 652, Sec. 2.

Source of truth

Edition
As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=GOV&sectionNum=53382.
Text hash
sha256 9546927ae82d7cb38af473800a69bd1e51ae11f9f4a20cf6bbd98bbc64236a71
Composed by
compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

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