Except as herein otherwise expressly provided, the council shall exercise all the general powers of the city herein set forth, and all powers now held by or that may hereafter be given to the city under the constitution or laws of the state; but only in the manner and under the conditions of this Charter, and subject to all its provisions.
In addition to all such powers, the council, subject to the provisions and restrictions of this Charter, shall have power:
1. To make and pass all ordinances, resolutions and orders not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States or the State of California, or to the provisions of this Charter, necessary for the municipal government and the management of the affairs of the city, for the execution of the powers vested in the city, and for carrying into effect the provisions of this Charter, and shall exercise all municipal powers necessary to the complete and efficient management and control of the municipal property, and for the efficient administration of the municipal government, whether such powers be expressly enumerated herein or not.
2. To make and enforce within its limits, such local, police, sanitary and other regulations as are deemed expedient to maintain the public peace, protect property, promote the public morals and preserve the health of its inhabitants.
3. To provide a corporate seal, with appropriate device, to be affixed to all instruments or writings needing authentication.
4. To provide for the holding of municipal elections, give notice thereof, establish and alter election precincts, as provided in this Charter, and appoint necessary election officers.
5. To prescribe fines, forfeitures and penalties for the violation of any provisions of this Charter or of any ordinance; to make the violation of any of the city ordinances a misdemeanor or infraction and to prescribe the punishment thereof by fine or imprisonment, or by both fine and imprisonment; but no such penalty or punishment shall exceed for each offense, one thousand dollars or six months' imprisonment, or both.
6. To cause persons imprisoned for violation of any ordinance or of any provision of this Charter, to labor on the streets or other public property or works within or without the city.
7. To declare what shall constitute a nuisance and to provide for the summary abatement of the same at the expense of the person or persons creating, causing, committing or maintaining such nuisance, and all remedies which are or may be given by law, for the prevention and abatement of nuisances, shall apply thereto; to make such expense a lien and charge upon the property whereon such nuisance exists, and to make provision for the enforcement of such lien by the sale of such property or otherwise.
8. To organize, provide, maintain and operate police, fire and health divisions; erect necessary buildings and acquire all implements and apparatus necessary therefor, subject to the provisions of this Charter.
9. To establish, operate and maintain a fire alarm and police telegraph, telephone, or telecommunication system, and to manage and control the same, with the right to use the poles placed in the streets by public utility companies, whether such right has been set forth and reserved in their franchise or not.
10. To regulate or prohibit the manufacture, keeping, storage and use of gun cotton, nitro-glycerine, powder, dynamite, fireworks and other explosive materials and substances within the limits of the city, or any specified part thereof.
11. To regulate the storage of hay, straw, gasoline, benzine, oil and other inflammable and combustible materials.
12. To regulate the use of steam engines, gas engines, steam boilers, electric motors and all other means of generating heat or power, and to prohibit their use in localities where in the judgment of the council the public health, comfort, or safety would be endangered, and to provide for the examination and licensing of all persons engaged in operating the same.
13. To prescribe fire limits and determine the character and height of buildings that may be erected therein and the nature of the materials to be used in the construction, alteration or repair of such buildings or in the repair or alteration of existing buildings within such fire limits.
14. To regulate the construction of and the materials used in all buildings, chimneys, stacks, scaffolding, staging, false work and other structures; to prevent the erection and maintenance of insecure or unsafe buildings, walls, chimneys, stacks or other structures, and to provide for their summary abate-ment or destruction: to regulate the materials used in and the method of construction of foundations and foundation walls, the manner of construction and location of drains and sewers, the materials and methods used in wiring buildings or other structures for the use of electricity for lighting, power, heat and other purposes, and materials and methods used for piping buildings or other structures for the purpose of supplying the same with water, steam, oil or gas, and the manner of so doing; to regulate and prescribe all methods and materials used for the plumbing of all buildings and to prohibit the construction of buildings and structures which do not conform to such regula-tions.
15. To require the owners and lessees of buildings or other structures to place upon them or in them fire escapes and appliances for protection against fire and for the extinguishment of fires.
16. To prevent the construction and to cause the removal of dangerous chimneys, fireplaces, hearths, stoves, stove pipes, ovens, boilers, apparatus and machinery used or existing in any building or place in the city; to regulate the carrying on of manu-factories liable to cause fire; to prevent the depositing of ashes, the accumulation of shavings, rubbish, or any combustible or explosive material in unsafe places, and to make other provisions to guard against fires.
17. To regulate the size, position and construc-tion of entrance to and exits from, and the size and position of aisles, open places and stairways in all theaters, lecture rooms, halls, schools, churches, and other places for public gatherings of every kind, and to prohibit the placing of seats, chairs, benches or other obstructions in the hallways, aisles or open places therein.
18. Repealed.
19. To provide for the naming of streets and the numbering of houses; to regulate or prohibit the exhibition, posting or carrying of banners, placards, or advertisements, and the distribution of handbills in the streets, sidewalks, or other public places; regulate or prohibit the flying of banners, flags or signs across the street or from buildings; to regulate or prohibit traffic and sales in the streets and public places; to prevent encroachments upon or obstructions in the streets and to require their removal; to regulate street speaking and gatherings; to regulate all public meetings and gatherings, parades and processions in the streets or parks, and to determine what public meetings, gatherings, parades or processions upon the streets or parks shall be unlawful and to declare the same nuisances.
20. To require owners of real property in the city to remove grass, weeds, rubbish or other obstruc-tions from the public sidewalks, parkings, streets and alleys in front thereof, or upon which said property abuts, and upon their default, to cause such work to be done, and the cost thereof to be made a lien and charge upon any such real property, and to make provisions for the enforcement of such lien by the sale of such property or otherwise.
21. To require or provide by ordinance for the removal from property, lands or lots, of all weeds, rubbish or any other material which may endanger or injure neighboring property, or the health, safety or welfare of the residents of the vicinity, and to make the cost thereof a lien and charge upon such property, lots or lands, and to make provision for the enforce-ment of such lien by the sale of such property, lots or lands, or otherwise.
22. To require by ordinance the owners of real property fronting upon any street, lane, alley, or other public place in which there are, or in which it is proposed to construct sewers, water or gas mains, or other mains or conduits, to connect their several premises therewith or to cause such connection to be made and to make the cost thereof a lien and charge upon the property so connected, and to make provi-sion for the enforcement of such lien by the sale of such property, or otherwise.
23. Except as otherwise provided in this Charter or in the constitution of the State of California, to regulate and control for any and every purpose, the use of streets, lanes, alleys, courts, and sidewalks, and other public places, in the city.
24. To regulate, license or prohibit the construc-tion and use of billboards and signs on public or private property.
25. To regulate and prevent the running at large of any animals; to provide for the destruction of vicious dogs; to require the payment of license fees by owners or persons having possession of dogs; to impose penalties upon such persons for refusing to pay such license fees, and to establish and maintain a pound and authorize the destruction or other disposi-tion of any animals running at large.
26. To prohibit and punish cruelty to animals and to require the places where they are kept to be maintained in clean and healthful condition.
27. Repealed.
28. To regulate the maintenance of chemical works, slaughterhouses, washhouses, laundries, stables, tanneries, glue factories, garages, planing mills, foundaries, boiler shops, undertaking establish-ments and business of every description that may endanger the public safety, health or comfort, and to restrict the conduct thereof to such fixed limits as may seem proper, or to exclude such works and business from the city; to make and enforce regula-tions for the suppression of disagreeable or offensive noises or odors; and to provide for the punishment of all persons violating such regulations, and of all persons who knowingly permit the same to be violated in any building or upon any premises owned or controlled by them.
29. To provide for and regulate the inspection of all things used for food and drink or for human consumption, stored, manufactured, sold, given away, or exchanged in the city and to provide for taking and summarily destroying any such products as are unsound, spoiled, adulterated or unwholesome, and to regulate and prevent bringing into the city or having or keeping within the city any such unsound, spoiled, adulterated or unwholesome products.
30. Repealed.
31. To regulate hotels, lodging, tenement and apartment houses, and to prevent the overcrowding of the same, and to require that they be put and kept in proper sanitary condition.
32. To regulate or prohibit the construction, repair and use of sewers, sinks, gutters, wells, cesspools and vaults, and to compel the connecting, draining, cleaning or emptying of the same, and to designate the time and manner in which the work of draining, cleaning or emptying the same shall be done.
33. To provide for the collection and disposal of garbage, ashes, animal and vegetable refuse, dead animals, animal offal, rubbish and waste matter.
34. To license for purposes of regulations and revenue all and every kind of business not prohibited by law, ordinance or this Charter, to be transacted or carried on in the city; to fix the rate of licenses upon the same, and to provide for the collection thereof by suit or otherwise.
35. To establish stands for hacks, public carriages, automobiles, express wagons and other public vehicles for hire, and regulate the charges of such hacks, public carriages, automobiles, express wagons and other public vehicles, and to require schedules of such charges to be conspicuously posted in or upon such public vehicles, and to provide penalties for collecting charges in excess of such schedules.
36. Repealed.
37. To regulate the use, distribution, quality, pressure, and sale of water, gas, electric light, heat, power and other light, heat and power within the city; to fix and determine the price thereof, and to provide for the inspection and connection of all meters used in the measurements of said commodities.
38. To license, regulate, restrain or prohibit all exhibitions, public shows, games and amusements; to prevent and prohibit all descriptions of gambling or fraudulent devices, and practices; all playing of cards, dice, or other games of chance for the purpose of gambling; the keeping or operating of card machines, slot machines or other contrivances upon or into which money is staked, hazarded, deposited or paid upon chance, and the selling of pools on races, and to authorize the confiscation and destruction of all instruments used for the purpose of gambling.
39. To restrain and punish vagrants, mendicants, lewd persons and prostitutes; to prevent and punish drunkenness, prize fights, vagrancy, mendicancy, prostitution, and all offensive, immoral, indecent and disorderly conduct and practices in the city.
40. To levy and collect taxes upon all real and personal property within the city, subject to the limitations elsewhere in this Charter provided.
41. To provide for the repayment by the director of finance of any taxes, percentages or costs erroneously or illegally collected.*
42. To fix the fees and charges for all official services not otherwise provided for in this Charter.
43. To provide an urgent necessity fund, to be expended by or under the direction of the mayor.
44. To provide for the purchase of property levied upon or sold under execution in favor of the city, but the amount bid on such purchase shall not exceed the amount of judgment, interest, if any, and costs.
45. To provide for the sale at public auction upon five days' published notice or by notice posted in three public places in the City of Alhambra, for a period of five days, of personal property unfit or unnecessary for the city; provided, that personal property of less than one hundred dollars valuation may be sold at private sale without notice; provided further, that if the provisions of Section 135 of this Charter shall have been complied with as to the execution of a contract or the purchase of personal property by the city, personal property unfit or unnecessary for the use of the city may be traded in as part payment on account of the purchase of similar new personal property, without any requirement of auction, notice or separate bid.**
46. To provide for the execution of all trusts confided to the city.
47. To offer rewards for the apprehension and conviction of any person who commits a felony in the city, and to authorize the payment thereof.
48. To provide by ordinance for the planting, maintenance, or care of shade and ornamental trees in streets and other public places, and for the removal of unsightly and dead trees therefrom; to make the cost thereof a lien and charge upon the abutting property, and to make provision for the enforcement of such lien, and upon a petition of the owners of the majority of the frontage abutting upon any street or part thereof, by ordinance to require, or provide, or adopt general laws or laws for the planting, maintenance, or care of grass plots between the sidewalk and roadway in such street or part thereof, and to make the cost thereof a lien and charge upon the abutting property, and to make provision for the enforcement of such liens by the sale of property or otherwise.
49. To establish or change the grade of any street or public place.
50. To order the whole or any part of any street, avenue, lane, alley, court or public place within the City of Alhambra to be graded or regraded to the official grade, planked or replanked, paved or repaved, macadamized or remacadamized, graveled or regraveled, piled or repiled, capped or recapped, sewered or resewered, and to order sidewalks, man-holes, culverts, cesspools, gutters, tunnels, curbing and crosswalks to be constructed therein or thereon, and to order levees or walls of rock or other material to protect the same and also any other work or improvement therein or thereon, and also to order drainage or sanitary sewers or storm water sewers to be constructed on or through private property.
Whenever in the judgment of the council, the cost and expense of any of the foregoing improvements should be paid in whole or in part by special assessments on private property under the provisions of the general laws of the State of California then in force, such general laws shall thereupon govern and control, and all proceedings for such improvements shall be in conformity thereto.
51. To order the opening, extending, widening, vacating, straightening or closing in whole or in part of any street, lane, alley, court, or public place within the city, and to condemn and acquire any and all property necessary or convenient for that purpose.
Whenever, in the judgment of the council, the cost and expense of any of the foregoing improvements should be paid in whole or in part by special assessments on private property under the provisions of the general laws of the State of California then in force, such general laws shall thereupon govern and control, and all proceedings for such improvements shall be in conformity thereto.
52. Whenever in the judgment of the council public necessity requires, to require by ordinance any person, firm or corporation operating a public utility within said city for the distribution and furnishing of water, gas or electricity to construct, maintain and operate in or along any street, lane, alley or public place in said city, mains, pipe lines or conduits for the carriage and distribution of water, gas, or electricity, including suitable lateral pipes or conduits extending from the main pipes or conduits to the property lines of each lot fronting on said street or other public place, to carry water, gas or electricity to said property and to require the entire cost and expense of such construction to be borne and paid by the person, firm or corporation operating such public utility, and also to require such person, firm or corporation to furnish and maintain service of the product of such public utility through said mains, pipes or conduits and the council shall have all remedies for the enforcement of the provisions of this section.
53. To set apart as a boulevard or boulevards any street or streets over which there is no existing franchise for any railroad and to regulate and prevent heavy teaming thereon; and when any such street shall have been set aside as a boulevard, no franchise for a railroad, interurban railway or street railway of any kind shall be granted upon such boulevard and no railroad track of any kind shall ever be laid thereon, except to cross the same, unless a franchise therefor shall have been duly granted by vote of the people.
54. To construct, establish and maintain drains and sewers; to build and repair bridges.
55. To prohibit the diversion or drainage into a public sewer of any refuse or waste material from gas works, chemical works or refineries or other sources destructive to the use of sewer pipe or conduit, and to prohibit the diversion or drainage into any public sewer of any matter that will render the sewage unfit for irrigation.
56. To prescribe sewerage districts, and to require and compel the owners of all buildings and dwellings situated within such districts to connect the same with the city sewer system and in case of default on the part of such owners to cause such work to be done and the cost thereof to be made a lien and charge against such property and to provide for the enforcement of such lien.
57. To form, out of any territory within said city, storm water districts, and provide that the real estate in each district so formed be assessed to pay the expenses of constructing storm drains and acquiring rights of way therefor, for the purpose of diverting, conducting and caring for storm water and protecting property therein from injury therefrom; provided no such district shall be formed if a protest, signed by the owners of two thirds in assessed value of all the real property in such proposed district as it appears on the last equalized assessment roll as assessed for city purposes be filed before the final passage of the resolution or ordinance providing for the formation thereof, provided notice of such proposed passage must be published once in each week for three weeks prior thereto.
58. To provide for the lighting of streets, alleys, highways, public places and public buildings and for supplying the city with water for municipal purposes.
59. Repealed.
60. Repealed.
61. To require any person, firm or corporation, exercising or enjoying any franchise, permit, or privilege in, over, under, or along any of the streets, highways, or public places in the city for railway purposes, to sprinkle, clean, plank, or replank, pave or repave, macadamize or remacadamize the entire length of the street, highway or other public place used by the track or tracks of said railway, and between the rails, and for two feet on each side thereof, and between the tracks, if there be more than one, and to keep the same constantly in repair, flush with the street, and with good crossings, and to require such street work to be done with such kind of materials and in such manner as the council may by ordinance direct at the same time and as a part of the same operation as the work on the remainder in width of said street, highway or other public place, to the satisfaction of the superintendent of streets.
62. To permit the laying of spur or side tracks and running cars thereon for the purpose of con-necting warehouse, manufactories or other business industries and enterprises with any line of railroads, which do now or may hereafter enter the city, subject to such regulations and conditions as may be prescribed from time to time by the council, to be used for the transportation of freight only and not to be used as a main line or a part thereof, and also for the purpose of excavating or filling in a street or portion of a street or adjoining land during such limited time as may be necessary for such purpose and no longer. Such tracks must be laid level with the street and must be operated under such restrictions as not to interfere with the use of the streets by the public. All permits granted under the provisions of this subdivision shall be revocable at the pleasure of the council.
63. To cause the removal and placing under-ground of all telephone, telegraph, telecommunication, electric light or other wires within the city, or within any designated portion thereof, and to regulate or prohibit the placing of poles and suspending of wires along or across any of the streets, alleys, highways and public places in the city and to cause the immediate removal of all anchor posts or anchor wires or any other device now existing for bracing poles, and to prevent the placing of any such devices in the future.
64. To regulate the quality, size and location of all water pipes, gas pipes, mains, fire plugs and all other pipes and conduits laid or constructed in the streets or public places, provide for and regulate the construction, maintenance and repair of pipes, hydrants, fire plugs, cisterns, pumps and such other appliances as may be requisite to effect the distribu-tion of water and gas in the city, and to require the filing of charts and maps showing the size, character and location of such pipes, hydrants, fire plugs, cisterns and conduits.
65. To provide by ordinance a fund from which the expenses of all necessary matters of public entertainment and advertisement shall be met.
66. To provide a suitable procedure for taking over or otherwise acquiring municipal ownership of public utilities.
67. Lastly, notwithstanding any other provisions of this Charter, the council shall have the power to legislate over any municipal affair, subject to the limitations of the United States and California Constitutions, and in the absence of any such legisla-tion or provision of this Charter governing any such municipal affair, the general law of this State, where not inconsistent with any express provisions of this Charter, shall prevail until such time as legislation is adopted by the council or amendments to this Charter are made governing such municipal affair.
Editor's note:
*This subsection was amended by Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 72, which was approved by the voters of the city at an election held June 7, 1966.
**This subsection was amended by Stats. 1938, p. 151, and by Resolution 23241 of the Alhambra City Council which was approved by the voters of the city at an election held June 4, 1963.
This section was amended by the voters of the city on March 26, 1996; and was further amended by the voters of the city on March 5, 2002.