The Board of Park Commissioners shall have the necessary powers and authority to manage and control all public parks, parkways, playgrounds, athletic fields, stadiums, swimming pools, skating rinks and other recreational facilities of all kinds used as a part of the public park system or as a means of maintaining places of beauty, education and recreation, promoting the health, property, lives, decency, morality and other good order of the general public and particularly of the inhabitants of the City; to abate or cause to be abated all nuisances; to regulate or prohibit the selling of any article, goods, wares or merchandise within the park system so designated; regulate or prohibit the placing of signs, billboards, posters or advertisements within the park system so designated, or the grounds immediately adjacent thereto; to have the same kept in good order and free from obstruction for the use and benefit of the public; to restrict and prevent vagrants, mendicants, beggars, tramps, prostitutes or disorderly persons therefrom; to construct, improve and repair such parks, parkways, playgrounds, athletic fields, stadiums, swimming pools, skating rinks and other recreational facilities on any grounds controlled by the Board of Park Commissioners; to acquire for public use by lease or otherwise, lands either within or without the City limits as they now exist or may hereafter be enlarged or diminished; to cause any public street, road, alley, bridle path or walkway which is a part of the public park system to be graded, drained and surfaced; to construct, operate and maintain all necessary sewers and water lines in connection with the public park system; and to do any and all other things or acts which may in any way be necessary or incidental to the use and enjoyment of the public park system by the general public as a place of beauty, education, entertainment and recreation.
In order to accomplish the foregoing purposes, the Board of Park Commissioners shall be empowered to make or promulgate such rules as may be necessary or incidental thereto; to enforce the same by appropriate proceedings in any proper tribunal of this State or any county, district or municipality, and to employ such police officers as it shall deem necessary and proper. The City Attorney shall be the official counsel for the Board and shall advise it on all legal matters, but the Board may in its own discretion employ other or additional counsel. (1969 Code §2-99)