(a) The City Council is hereby designated as the agency to administer this chapter. All drilling ordinances and amendments shall be brought to the attention of the public by any appropriate means; and the publication of notice of the adoption of same in the official newspaper of the city, The Chico Texan, and the filing of certified copies of the full ordinance or extracts thereof in the Official Lease Records of Wise County, Texas, in the Office of the County Clerk of the County, are declared to be appropriate means. The provisions hereof shall nevertheless be binding on all persons, regardless of actual notice thereof.
(b) After the effective date of any such ordinance, the City Council shall have power to accept applications for any waiver, permit, amendment, change, modification of boundary lines as herein provided or shown on the attached plat, or any other order expressly provided or impliedly contemplated herein or reasonably necessary to carry out the purposes and policies hereof; to set a day and time for hearing thereon; to issue such notice as it deems appropriate to any such hearing; to hear evidence thereon; to make findings germane thereto; and to enter such order or orders, granting or denying any relief sought hereunder in whole or in part, as it shall deem proper hereunder.
(c) No suit shall be brought against the city or any party hereunder until such issue shall have first been so submitted to the City Council and by it acted on, after which any party aggrieved may institute his suit in any court having jurisdiction. For the violation of this provision any party shall immediately lose all rights under any permit or other order granted by the city, and no further permits or rights shall be granted to such party hereunder. The procedure in any such hearing shall be prescribed by the City Council, shall be informal, and shall be determined at discretion of the City Council in any manner which does not violate the principles of due process of law nor invade unjustly the rights of any party, or in any manner to which the parties and the city may stipulate.
(d) It is the intention of the City Council hereby to constitute itself a general regulatory agency with power to regulate and control all questions pertaining to such drilling and operation of oil and gas wells within the city, which may substantially involve the health, safety or welfare of the inhabitants of the city; and under the same conditions to regulate such drilling and the manner thereof outside but adjacent or approximate to the corporate limits of the city so far as lawfully possible; all such jurisdiction however to be exercised concurrently with and subject to, and in a manner not in conflict with, the jurisdiction or regulations of the Railroad Commission of Texas or other lawful regulatory agencies of the State of Texas or of the United States.
(Ord. 39817, passed 10-2-79)