(a) In addition to its corporate powers heretofore granted, the county is hereby authorized and empowered:
(1) To acquire by purchase, gift, devise or bequest, sites for county schools and to enlarge or improve such sites and to construct, alter, enlarge, improve, develop or extend existing county schools, and to construct new school buildings and purchase the physical equipment necessary or incident thereto and to purchase, construct or otherwise acquire any other buildings or equipment other than schools considered necessary for educational purposes.
(2) To acquire by purchase, gift, devise or bequest rights-of-way for county roads and to layout, open, construct, improve, extend and replace county roads, streets, highways, culverts, viaducts and bridges.
(3) To contribute toward the cost of highway projects of the state roads commission located in the county.
(4) To enlarge, renew, replace, alter and improve existing county public buildings and to acquire by purchase, gift, devise or bequest sites for and to construct or otherwise acquire new buildings to be used for any legal governmental or municipal functions.
(5) And provided further that the county may contract or covenant with the government of the United States and of the state and with any commission, board, district or authority for the purpose of carrying out the powers conferred by this section, including the method of financing in whole or in part the projects authorized herein.
(b) This section shall be deemed to provide an additional and alternative method for the doing of the things authorized hereby and shall be regarded as supplemental and additional to powers conferred by other laws, and shall not be regarded as in derogation of any powers now existing. This section, being necessary for the welfare of the inhabitants of the county, shall be liberally construed to effect the purposes hereof. All acts and parts of acts, however inconsistent with the provisions of this section, are hereby repealed to the extent of such inconsistency. (Mont. Co. Code 1965, § 2-17; 1947, ch. 835, §§ 1, 4; 1969 L.M.C., ch. 36, § 2.)
Editor's note-The predecessor paragraph to paragraph (2) of the above section is mentioned in County Council v. Lee, 219 Md. 209, 148 A.2d 568 (1959).
