Every person or corporation operating a public utility within the City limits, whether under a grant heretofore or hereafter obtained, shall keep and maintain at some place within the City suitable and complete books of accounts, showing in detail the assets, financial obligations, gross revenue, net profits and all operations of such utility which are usually shown by a complete system of bookkeeping. Each person or corporation under a City franchise, within six days after the end of each fiscal year, unless the City Commission shall extend the time, shall file with the City Commission a report of 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 City Commission from time to time may prescribe. The City Commission may also prescribe the form for such reports.
It shall be the duty of such person or corporation to furnish the City Commission with such supplementary or special information about its affairs as the City Commission may demand; and the City Commission, or its authorized representative, shall at any and all reasonable times have access to all the books, records and papers of each and every such 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 in the sum of twenty-five dollars per day for each day of such failure, said twenty-five dollars to be recovered in a civil action in the name of the City.
The provisions of this section do not apply to any utility extending in its operation to other communities, not properly suburban to the City of Gallipolis, Ohio; but the City Commission by ordinance, may make the same, or any part thereof, applicable to the portion of any utility operated within the limits of the City.