Terms Used In Virginia Code > Title 15.2 > Subtitle II > Chapter 24 > Article 4 - Business Improvement and Recruitment Districts.

• Activities: means any programs or services provided for (i) the purposes of recruiting businesses to relocate in the business improvement and recruitment district and (ii) conferring specific benefits upon the businesses that are located in the business improvement and recruitment district and to which a fee is charged. See Virginia Code 15.2-2413.12
• Amendment: A proposal to alter the text of a pending bill or other measure by striking out some of it, by inserting new language, or both. Before an amendment becomes part of the measure, thelegislature must agree to it.
• Appeal: A request made after a trial, asking another court (usually the court of appeals) to decide whether the trial was conducted properly. To make such a request is "to appeal" or "to take an appeal." One who appeals is called the appellant.
• Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
• Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
• Benefit zone: means an apportioned area designated within a business improvement and recruitment district in which businesses pay a fee based upon the degree of benefit derived from activities to be provided. See Virginia Code 15.2-2413.12
• Benefited business: includes one or more types of businesses, one or more segments of businesses, or businesses within one or more industries, as set forth in a business improvement and recruitment district plan. See Virginia Code 15.2-2413.12
• Business: means a business of any kind located in a business improvement and recruitment district. See Virginia Code 15.2-2413.12
• Business fee: means any fee charged to a benefited business pursuant to this article. See Virginia Code 15.2-2413.12
• Business improvement and recruitment district: means a district established by a locality under the provisions of this article within a Main Street District. See Virginia Code 15.2-2413.12
• Business improvement and recruitment district plan: means a proposal for a business improvement and recruitment district under the provisions of this article. See Virginia Code 15.2-2413.12
• Business owner: means any person recognized by a locality as the owner of a business subject to a business fee. See Virginia Code 15.2-2413.12
• City: means an independent incorporated community which became a city as provided by law before noon on July 1, 1971, or which has within defined boundaries a population of 5,000 or more and which has become a city as provided by law. See Virginia Code 1-208
• Communicable disease of public health threat: means an illness of public health significance, as determined by the State Health Commissioner in accordance with regulations of the Board of Health, caused by a specific or suspected infectious agent that may be reasonably expected or is known to be readily transmitted directly or indirectly from one individual to another and has been found to create a risk of death or significant injury or impairment; this definition shall not, however, be construed to include human immunodeficiency viruses or tuberculosis, unless used as a bioterrorism weapon. See Virginia Code 44-146.16
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• County: means any existing county or such unit hereafter created. See Virginia Code 15.2-102
• Department: means the State Department of Social Services. See Virginia Code 63.2-100
• Disaster: means (i) any man-made disaster, including any condition following an attack by any enemy or foreign nation upon the United States resulting in substantial damage of property or injury to persons in the United States including by use of bombs, missiles, shell fire, or nuclear, radiological, chemical, or biological means or other weapons or by overt paramilitary actions; terrorism, foreign and domestic; cyber incidents; and any industrial, nuclear, or transportation accident, explosion, conflagration, power failure, resources shortage, or other condition such as sabotage, oil spills, and other injurious environmental contaminations that threaten or cause damage to property, human suffering, hardship, or loss of life and (ii) any natural disaster, including any hurricane, tornado, storm, flood, high water, wind-driven water, tidal wave, earthquake, drought, fire, communicable disease of public health threat, or other natural catastrophe resulting in damage, hardship, suffering, or possible loss of life. See Virginia Code 44-146.16
• Emergency: means any occurrence, or threat thereof, whether natural or man-made, which results or may result in substantial injury or harm to the population or substantial damage to or loss of property or natural resources and may involve governmental action beyond that authorized or contemplated by existing law because governmental inaction for the period required to amend the law to meet the exigency would work immediate and irrevocable harm upon the citizens or the environment of the Commonwealth or some clearly defined portion or portions thereof. See Virginia Code 44-146.16
• Emergency services: means the preparation for and the carrying out of functions, other than functions for which military forces are primarily responsible, to prevent, minimize, and repair injury and damage resulting from disasters, together with all other activities necessary or incidental to the preparation for and carrying out of the foregoing functions. See Virginia Code 44-146.16
• Entitlement: A Federal program or provision of law that requires payments to any person or unit of government that meets the eligibility criteria established by law. Entitlements constitute a binding obligation on the part of the Federal Government, and eligible recipients have legal recourse if the obligation is not fulfilled. Social Security and veterans' compensation and pensions are examples of entitlement programs.
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• Fee: means a fee charged by a locality in accordance with a business improvement and recruitment district plan. See Virginia Code 15.2-2413.12
• Governing body: means the board of supervisors of a county, council of a city, or council of a town, as the context may require. See Virginia Code 15.2-102
• in writing: include any representation of words, letters, symbols, numbers, or figures, whether (i) printed or inscribed on a tangible medium or (ii) stored in an electronic or other medium and retrievable in a perceivable form and whether an electronic signature authorized by Virginia Code 1-257
• Includes: means includes, but not limited to. See Virginia Code 1-218
• Individual: shall include any companion animal. See Virginia Code 44-146.16
• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• Lead locality: means the locality in which the business improvement and recruitment district plan is filed for the establishment of a business improvement and recruitment district where such district includes more than one locality. See Virginia Code 15.2-2413.12
• Local board: means the local board of social services representing one or more counties or cities. See Virginia Code 63.2-100
• Local emergency: means the condition declared by the local governing body when in its judgment the threat or actual occurrence of an emergency or disaster is or threatens to be of sufficient severity and magnitude to warrant coordinated local government action to prevent or alleviate the damage, loss, hardship, or suffering threatened or caused thereby, provided, however, that a local emergency arising wholly or substantially out of a resource shortage may be declared only by the Governor, upon petition of the local governing body, when he deems the threat or actual occurrence of such an emergency or disaster to be of sufficient severity and magnitude to warrant coordinated local government action to prevent or alleviate the damage, loss, hardship, or suffering threatened or caused thereby, and provided, however, nothing in this chapter shall be construed as prohibiting a local governing body from the prudent management of its water supply to prevent or manage a water shortage. See Virginia Code 44-146.16
• Locality: means any county, city, or town in the Commonwealth. See Virginia Code 15.2-2413.12
• Main Street District: means a physical setting that includes a commercial area focusing on economic development through locally owned businesses and structures that would benefit from rehabilitation. See Virginia Code 15.2-2413.12
• Major disaster: means any natural catastrophe, including any: hurricane, tornado, storm, high water, wind-driven water, tidal wave, tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruption, landslide, mudslide, snowstorm, or drought, or regardless of cause, any fire, flood, or explosion, in any part of the United States, which, in the determination of the President of the United States is, or thereafter determined to be, of sufficient severity and magnitude to warrant major disaster assistance under the Stafford Act (P. See Virginia Code 44-146.16
• Majority share of benefited businesses: means one or more benefited businesses within a business improvement and recruitment district or proposed business improvement and recruitment district that cumulatively comprise a simple majority. See Virginia Code 15.2-2413.12
• Month: means a calendar month and "year" means a calendar year. See Virginia Code 1-223
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• Person: includes any individual, corporation, partnership, association, cooperative, limited liability company, trust, joint venture, government, political subdivision, or any other legal or commercial entity and any successor, representative, agent, agency, or instrumentality thereof. See Virginia Code 1-230
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• Political subdivision: means any city or county in the Commonwealth and, for the purposes of this chapter, the Town of Chincoteague and any town of more than 5,000 population that chooses to have an emergency management program separate from that of the county in which such town is located. See Virginia Code 44-146.16
• Process: includes subpoenas, the summons and complaint in a civil action, and process in statutory actions. See Virginia Code 1-237
• Public assistance: means Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF); auxiliary grants to the aged, blind, and disabled; medical assistance; energy assistance; food stamps; employment services; child care; and general relief. See Virginia Code 63.2-100
• Resource shortage: means the absence, unavailability, or reduced supply of any raw or processed natural resource or any commodities, goods, or services of any kind that bear a substantial relationship to the health, safety, welfare, and economic well-being of the citizens of the Commonwealth. See Virginia Code 44-146.16
• Social services: means foster care, adoption, adoption assistance, child-protective services, domestic violence services, or any other services program implemented in accordance with regulations adopted by the Board. See Virginia Code 63.2-100
• State: when applied to a part of the United States, includes any of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the United States Virgin Islands. See Virginia Code 1-245
• state agency: means the same as that term is defined in § Virginia Code 1-206
• State of emergency: means the condition declared by the Governor when in his judgment the threat or actual occurrence of an emergency or a disaster in any part of the Commonwealth is of sufficient severity and magnitude to warrant disaster assistance by the Commonwealth to supplement the efforts and available resources of the several localities and relief organizations in preventing or alleviating the damage, loss, hardship, or suffering threatened or caused thereby and is so declared by him. See Virginia Code 44-146.16
• TANF: means the program administered by the Department through which a relative can receive monthly cash assistance for the support of his eligible children. See Virginia Code 63.2-100
• Town: means any existing town or an incorporated community within one or more counties which became a town before noon, July one, nineteen hundred seventy-one, as provided by law or which has within defined boundaries a population of 1,000 or more and which has become a town as provided by law. See Virginia Code 15.2-102
• Town: means any existing town or an incorporated community within one or more counties which became a town before noon, July 1, 1971, as provided by law or which has within defined boundaries a population of 1,000 or more and which has become a town as provided by law. See Virginia Code 1-254
• United States: includes the 50 states, the District of Columbia the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the United States Virgin Islands. See Virginia Code 1-255