In this article, unless the context otherwise requires:
1. "Assessment" or "assessment roll" means a special assessment made under this article.
2. "Block" means a parcel of ground, regular or irregular, bounded by streets or by streets and district boundary lines.
3. "Chairman of the board" means the person designated to preside over meetings of the board of directors.
4. "Clerk" or "district clerk" means the clerk of the board of supervisors, who shall be the clerk under this article and in whose office shall be filed all papers directed or required to be filed with the clerk.
5. "Commercial farming" means the intensive cultivation of arable land by the raising of agricultural or horticultural products as a principal source of the owner's livelihood.
6. "Commercial stock raising" means the breeding, raising and care of domestic animals as a principal source of the owner's livelihood.
7. "Contractor" includes personal representatives or assignee of the contractor.
8. "Delinquency" means delinquency in the payment of an assessment.
9. "Engineer" or "district engineer" means a person designated or employed by the board of directors of a district to perform any or all of the engineering work authorized to be done by the district under this article.
10. "Improvement bond" means a bond issued under this article.
11. "Lighting plants" includes electric light plants, electric power plants, gas plants, distribution systems, poles, parts, pipes, conduits, wires, tanks, reservoirs, generators for gas or electricity, transmission lines, towers, lamps, transformers of every character, machinery, apparatus, equipment and all appliances and structures necessary or incidental to the construction, installation or operation of a complete electric light, power and gas plant and distribution system placed on the streets improved, though extended beyond.
12. "Lot" includes any portion, piece, parcel or subdivision of land, but not property owned or controlled by any person as a railroad right of way.
13. "Owner" means the person in whom legal title appears by recorded deed, or the person in possession under claim or title, or the person exercising acts of ownership for himself or as the personal representative of the owner, including the boards of trustees of school districts and the boards of education of high school districts owning property within the proposed improvement district.
14. "Sewers" includes wastewater treatment facilities, tunnels, excavations, ditches, drains, conduits, channels, outlets, outfalls, cesspools, manholes, catch basins, flush tanks, septic tanks, connecting sewers of every character, machinery, apparatus, equipment and all appliances and structures necessary or incidental to the construction, installation or operation of a complete sewer system for either sanitary or drainage purposes.
15. "Street" includes avenues, alleys, highways, lanes, crossings, intersections, courts, places and grounds opened or dedicated to public use and public ways.
16. "Street superintendent" or "superintendent" means a county employee designated by the board of supervisors to perform the duties of street superintendent for all the districts organized under this article in any county.
17. "Time of delinquency" means the time when assessments become delinquent.
18. "Treasurer" or "district treasurer" means the treasurer of the county in which a district is situated, who shall be the treasurer of the district.
19. "Unincorporated area" means any portion of a county not within the limits of an incorporated city or town, so situated that any of the improvements provided for in this article might reasonably or properly be made or constructed for the benefit of the inhabitants of the area under existing special assessment statutes if the area were situated within an incorporated city or town.
20. "Wastewater systems" means sewers and other wastewater treatment facilities.
21. "Waterworks" means works for the storage or development of water for domestic uses, including drinking water treatment facilities, wells, pumping machinery, power plants, pipelines and all equipment necessary for those purposes.
22. "Work" or "improvement" includes any of the improvements mentioned and authorized to be made in this article, the construction, reconstruction and repair of all or any portion of any such improvement, and labor, services, expenses and material necessary or incidental thereto.