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The Council may, by ordinance, grant permission to any individual, company or corporation to construct and operate a public utility in the streets and public grounds of the City but not for a period exceeding twenty years. It may prescribe in the ordinance the kind and quality of service or the product to be furnished, the rate or rates to be charged therefor, and any terms and conditions conducive to the public interest; and also the manner in which the streets and public grounds shall be used and occupied. And no franchise shall be considered an emergency measure and shall be subject to referendum as hereinbefore provided.
The Council may, by ordinance, renew any grant for the construction or operation of any utility, at its expiration, upon such terms as may be conducive to the public interest. All such grants and renewals thereof shall reserve to the City the right to purchase all the property of the utility in the streets and highways and elsewhere used in, or useful for, the operation of the utility, at a price either fixed in the ordinance, or to be fixed in the manner provided by the ordinance making the grant or the renewal of the grant. Nothing in such ordinance shall prevent the City from acquiring the property of any such utility by condemnation proceedings or in any other lawful mode; but all such methods of acquisition shall be alternative to the power of purchase, reserved in the grant or renewal as hereinbefore provided.
No ordinance making such grant or renewal shall be valid unless it shall expressly provide therein that the price to be paid by the City for the property that may be required by it from such utility, by purchase, condemnation or otherwise, shall exclude all value of such grant or renewal.
Upon the acquisition by the City of the property of any utility by purchase, condemnation or otherwise, all grants or renewals shall at once terminate.
The Council may, by ordinance, grant to any individual, company or corporation operating a public utility, the right to extend the appliances and service of such utility. All such extensions shall become a part of the aggregate property of the utility and shall be subject to all the obligations and reserved rights in favor of the City applicable to the property of the utility by virtue of the ordinance providing for its construction and operation. The right to use and maintain any such extension shall expire with the original grant of the utility to which the extension was made or any renewal thereof.
No consent of the owner of property abutting on any highway or public ground shall be required by the Council as a condition of its authority to authorize the construction, extension, maintenance, or operation of any public utility by original grant or renewal, unless such public utility is of such a character that its construction or operation is an additional burden upon the rights of the property owners in such highways or public grounds.
The Council shall at all times control the distribution of space in, over, under or across all streets or public grounds occupied by public utility fixtures. All rights granted for the construction and operation of public utilities shall be subject to the continuing right of Council to require such reconstruction, re-location, change or discontinuance of the appliances used by the utility in the streets, alleys, avenues, and highways, of the City, as shall in the opinion of the Council be necessary in the public interest.
GENERAL PROVISIONS
The Council in fixing the salary of any officer, clerk or employee shall determine whether such officer, clerk, or employee shall give a bond, the amount thereof, which bond shall be given by such officer, clerk or employee with security to the approval of the Mayor and Council and be then filed with the Director of Finance and Public Record.
All persons holding office at the time this Charter goes into effect shall continue in office and in the performance of their duties until provision shall have been otherwise made in accordance with this Charter for the performance or discontinuance of the duties of any such office. When such provision shall have been made the term of any such officer shall expire and the office be deemed abolished. The powers which are conferred and the duties which are impose upon any officer, commission, board or department of the City under the laws of the State shall, if such office or department is abolished by this Charter, be thereafter exercised and discharged by the officer, board or department upon whom are imposed corresponding functions, powers and duties hereunder.
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