Section 329. Option to change to sole elected assessor

In any city or town
  where  the  option  to  retain  elective  assessors  was  exercised   in
  accordance  with  the  provisions  of  former  section  fifteen  hundred
  fifty-six of this chapter, the legislative body of such city or town may
  adopt a local law providing that from and after the first day of January
  first following the next biennial  or  general  election  at  which  the
  electors would vote for an assessor, there shall be but one assessor, to
  be  elected  at  that election. The legislative body, in its discretion,
  may determine that a local law adopted pursuant to this section shall be
  subject to a mandatory or permissive referendum, or  not  subject  to  a
  referendum.  Any  such  referendum  shall  be  conducted  in  the manner
  prescribed in section twenty-three or twenty-four of the municipal  home
  rule  law,  as  the case may be. On December thirty-first of the year in
  which such local law shall  take  effect,  the  term  or  terms  of  all
  assessors then in office shall terminate.