Every person or corporation operating a public utility within the City limits, whether a grant heretofore or hereafter obtained, shall keep and maintain at some place within the City suitable and complete books of account, showing in detail the assets, financial obligations, gross revenue, net profits, and all the operations of such utility which are usually shown by a complete system of bookkeeping. Each person or corporation, within 60 days after the end of each of its fiscal years, unless the Council shall extend the time, shall file with the Council a report for the preceding fiscal year showing the gross revenue, the net profits, expenses of repairs, betterments, and additions, amount paid for salaries, amount paid for interest and discount, other expenses of operation, and such other information, if any, as the Council from time to time may prescribe. Council may also prescribe the form for such reports.
It shall be the duty of each person or corporation to furnish the Council such supplementary or special information about its affairs as Council may demand; and the Council, or its authorized representative, shall at any and all reasonable times have access to all the books, records, and papers of each and every person or corporation, with the privilege of making copies of same or any part thereof. The duties herein prescribed may be specifically enforced by appropriate legal proceedings; and in addition, each such person or corporation, for failure to comply with the provisions of this section, shall be liable to the City of Ashtabula, Ohio, in the sum of $25 per day for each day of such failure, to be recovered in a civil action in the name of the City.
The provisions of this section do not apply to any utility building extending in its operation to other communities not properly suburban to the City of Ashtabula, Ohio; but the Council by ordinance may make the same, or any part thereof, applicable to the portion of any such utility operated within the limits of the City.