The board of trustees of any library district may, when in their judgment it is deemed advisable, and shall, upon a petition of 50 or more taxpayers and residents of the library district, call an election and submit to the electors of the district, the proposition of whether the bonds of the district will be issued and sold for the purpose of raising money for any or all of the following:

The bond election shall be called and conducted and the results thereof canvassed, returned, and declared in the manner provided in Chapter 3 (commencing with Section 5300) of Part 4 of this division.

The board of trustees shall set forth in the resolution calling for a bond election the amount and denomination of the bonds, the rate of interest, and the number of years that all or any part of the bonds are to run.

If it appears that two-thirds of the votes cast at the election were cast in favor of issuing the bonds, the board shall enter the fact upon its minutes and shall certify all the proceedings to the supervising board of supervisors. Thereupon the board of supervisors shall issue the bonds of the district, in the number and amount provided in the proceedings, and the district shall be named on the bonds. The bonds shall be paid out of the building fund of the district.

The money for the redemption of the bonds and the payment of interest thereon shall be raised by taxation upon the taxable property in the district.

The total amount of bonds issued shall not exceed 5 percent of the assessed value of the property of the district, prior to the 1980–81 fiscal year and shall not exceed 1.25 percent of the assessed value of the district beginning after the 1981–82 fiscal year, as shown by the last equalized assessment roll of the county or counties in which the district is situated.

The supervising board of supervisors by an order entered upon its minutes shall prescribe the form of the bonds and of the interest coupons attached thereto, and shall fix the time when the whole or any part of the principal of the bonds shall be payable, which shall not be more than 40 years from the date thereof.

The bonds shall not bear a greater amount of interest than 6 percent, to be payable annually or semiannually. The bonds shall be sold in the manner prescribed by the board of supervisors, but for not less than par, and the proceeds of the sale thereof shall be deposited in the county treasury to the credit of the building fund of the library district, and shall be drawn out for the purposes for which the bonds were issued as other library money is drawn out.

The board of supervisors of each county in which any part of the district is situated, at the time of making the levy of taxes for county purposes, shall levy a tax for that year upon the taxable property in the district, at the equalized assessed value thereof for that year, for the interest and redemption of the bonds. The tax shall not be less than sufficient to pay the interest of the bonds for that year, and such portion of the principal as is to become due during the year. In any event the tax shall be high enough to raise, annually, for the first half of the term the bonds are to run, a sufficient sum to pay the interest thereon, and during the balance of the term, high enough to pay the annual interest and to pay, annually, a proportion of the principal of the bonds equal to a sum produced by taking the whole amount of the bonds outstanding and dividing it by the number of years the bonds then have to run.

All money levied, when collected, shall be paid into the county treasury to the credit of the library district, and shall be used for the payment of principal and interest on the bonds, and for no other purpose. The principal and interest on the bonds shall be paid by the county treasurer, upon the warrant of the county auditor, out of the fund provided therefor. The county auditor shall cancel and file with the county treasurer the bonds and coupons as rapidly as they are paid.

Whenever any bonds issued under this article remain unsold for the period of six months after having been offered for sale in the manner prescribed by the supervising board of supervisors, the board of trustees of the library district for or on account of which the bonds were issued, or of any library district composed wholly or partly of territory which, at the time of holding the election authorizing the issuance of the bonds, was embraced within the district for or on account of which the bonds were issued, may petition the supervising board of supervisors to cause the unsold bonds to be withdrawn from the market and canceled.

Upon receiving the petition, signed by a majority of the members of the board of trustees, the supervising board of supervisors shall fix a time for hearing the petition, which shall be not more than 30 days thereafter, and shall cause a notice, stating the time and place of hearing, and the object of the petition in general terms, to be published as provided in this chapter.

At the time and place designated in the notice for hearing the petition, or at any subsequent time to which the hearing is postponed, the supervising board of supervisors shall hear any reasons that are submitted for or against the granting of the petition, and if they deem it for the best interests of the library district named in the petition that the unsold bonds be canceled, they shall make and enter an order in the minutes of their proceedings that the unsold bonds be canceled. Thereupon the bonds, and the vote by which they were authorized to be issued, shall cease to be of any validity whatever.