SECTION 44. Improvement districts; purposes; membership; tenure; powers and duties

A town may, at a town meeting, authorize a village or district therein, if it contains not less than one thousand inhabitants, to organize under a name approved by the town for the purpose of erecting and maintaining street lamps, establishing and maintaining libraries, building and maintaining sidewalks, or for employing and paying police officers, and shall accurately define the limits of such village or district. Such village or district shall have a clerk and a prudential committee, and may have a treasurer and such other officers as it determines, each of whom shall hold office for one year and until another is qualified. Such village or district may adopt by-laws to define the manner of calling its meetings and the duties of its officers, may sue and be sued in the name of its inhabitants, and, so far as appropriate, shall be subject to sections sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-six, sixty-nine, seventy-one, seventy-two, seventy-three, seventy-seven and seventy-nine of chapter forty-eight.