(A) The City Council has the following powers:
(1) To control the finances and property of the corporation;
(2) To appropriate money for corporate purposes only, and provide for the payment of debts and expenses of the corporation;
(3) To levy and collect taxes for general and special purposes on real and personal property;
(4) To fix the amount, terms, and manner for issuing and revoking licenses;
(5) To borrow money on the credit of the corporation, for corporate purposes, and issue bonds therefor in such amounts, and forms, and on such conditions, as it shall prescribe, but shall not become indebted in any manner, for any purpose, to any amount, including existing indebtedness, in the aggregate, to exceed 5% on the value of the taxable property therein, to be ascertained by the last assessment, for state and county taxes previous to the incurring of such indebtedness, and before, or at the time of incurring any indebtedness, shall provide for the collection of a direct annual tax, sufficient to pay the interest on such debt, as it falls due, and also to pay and discharge the principal thereof within 20 years after contracting the same; provided no bonds shall be issued by the said City Council, under the provisions of this section, either for general or special purposes, unless at an election after 20 days notice in a newspaper published in the city, stating the purposes for which said bonds are to be issued, and the amount thereof. The legal voters by a majority shall be determined in favor of issuing said bonds;
(6) To issue bonds in place of or to supply means to meet maturing bonds, or for the consolidation of funding the same;
(7) To lay out, establish, open, alter, widen, extend, grade, pave, or otherwise improve streets, alleys, avenues, sidewalks, wharfs, parks, and public grounds, and vacate the same;
(8) To plant trees on the same;
(9) To regulate the use of the same;
(10) To prevent and remove obstructions and encroachment upon the same;
(11) To provide for the lighting of the same;
(12) To provide for the cleansing of the same;
(13) To regulate the use of sidewalks and all structures thereunder, and to require the owner or occupant of any premises to keep the sidewalks in front of or along the same free from snow and other obstructions;
(14) To regulate and prevent the throwing or depositing of ashes, offal, dirt, garbage, or any offensive matter into any street, avenue, alley, public ground, or any stream of water within the city limits, or forming the boundary thereof, and to prevent injury to any street, avenue, alley, or public grounds;
(15) To provide for and regulate crosswalks, curbs, and gutters;
(16) To regulate and prevent the use of streets, sidewalks, and public grounds for signs, signposts, awnings, telegraph or telephone poles, horse troughs, rasks, posting hand bills, and advertisements;
(17) To regulate and prohibit the exhibition or carrying of banners, placards, advertisements, or hand bills in the streets of public grounds, or upon the sidewalks;
(18) To regulate and prevent the flying of flags, banners, or signs across the streets or from houses;
(19) To regulate traffic and sales upon the streets, sidewalks, and public places;
(20) To regulate the speed of horses and other animals, vehicles, cars, and locomotives within the limits of the corporation;
(21) To regulate the numbering of houses and lots;
(22) To name and change the names of any street, avenue, alley, or other public place;
(23) To permit, regulate, or prohibit the locating, constructing, or laying a track of any horse railroad in any street, alley, or public place, but such permission shall not be a longer time than 20 years;
(24) To provide for and change the location, grade, and crossings of any railroad;
(25) To require railroad companies to fence their respective railroads, or any portion of the same, and construct cattle guards, crossings for streets and public roads, and viaduct or overhead crossings, and keep the same in repair, within the city limits;
(26) To require railroad companies to keep flaggers at railroad crossings of streets, and to provide protection against injury to persons and property; to compel such railroads to raise or lower the railroad track to conform to any grade, which may at any time be established by such city, and where such tracks run lengthwise of any such street, alley, or highway, to keep their railroad tracks on a level with the street surface, and so that such tracks may be crossed at any place on such street, alley, or highway; to compel and require railroad companies to take, keep open, and keep in repair ditches, drains, sewers, and culverts along and under their railroad tracks, so that filthy or stagnant pools of water cannot stand on their grounds or right-of-way, and so that natural or artificial drainage of the adjacent property shall not be impeded;
(27) To construct and keep in repair bridges, viaducts, and tunnels, and to regulate the use thereof;
(28) To construct and keep in repair, culverts, drains, sewers, catch basins, manholes, and cess pools, and to regulate the use thereof;
(29) To license, tax, regulate, suppress, and prohibit hawkers, peddlers, pawnbrokers, keepers of ordinaries, theatricals and other exhibitions, shows, and amusements, ticket scalpers and employment agencies, and to regulate or license the manufacture and sale of cigars, tobacco, cigarettes, snuff, soda water, mineral water, and all light drinks of every kind, the manufacture and sale of which is not prohibited by the laws of the state;
(30) To license, tax, and regulate, carriage drivers, omnibus drivers, carters, cab drivers, porters, mail carriers, watermen and the like, and all other like occupations, and to prescribe their compensation;
(31) To license, regulate, tax, and restrain runners for cars, public houses, thugs, or persons;
(32) To license, regulate, tax, prohibit, and suppress billiards, bagatelle, pigeon hole, or other tables or implements kept or used for a similar purpose in any public resort, pin alley, and hall alley;
(33) To suppress bawdy or disorderly houses, or houses of ill fame or assignation within the limits of the city, and within one mile of the outer boundaries of ths same; and also to suppress gaming and gambling houses, lotteries, and all fraudulent devices and practices for the purpose of gambling or obtaining money or property; and to prohibit the sale or exhibition of obscene or immoral publications, prints, pictures, or illustrations;
(34) To establish markets and market houses, and to provide for the regulation and use thereof;
(35) To regulate the construction, repairs, and use of vaults, cisterns, areas, hydrants, pumps, sewers, and gutters;
(36) To construct and maintain water works, and make all the needful rules and regulations concerning the distribution and use of water supplied by such water works;
(37) To appropriate, damage, take, and condemn any property of any corporation or person for the purpose of establishing, changing, opening, widening, extending, or grading any public street or alley;
(38) To prevent intoxication, fighting, quarreling, dog fights, cockfights, and disorderly conduct;
(39) To regulate partition fences and party walls;
(40) To prescribe the thickness, strength, and manner of constructing stone, brick, and other buildings, and construction of fire escapes therein;
(41) To prescribe the limits within which wooden buildings shall not be erected, placed, or repaired without permission, and direct that any or all buildings within said limits (which shall be known as the fire limits) when the same shall have been damaged by fire, decay, or otherwise to the extent of 50% of the value shall be torn down or removed, and to prescribe the manner of ascertaining such damage;
(42) To prevent dangerous construction, and condition of chimneys, fire places, hearths, stoves, stove pipes, ovens, boilers, and apparatus used in and about any building and manufactory, and to cause the same to be removed, or placed in a safe condition, where considered dangerous: to regulate and prevent the carrying on of manufactories dangerous in causing and promoting fires; to prevent the deposit of ashes in unsafe places; and cause all such places and cause all such buildings and inclosures as may be in a dangerous state to be put in a safe condition;
(43) To erect engine houses and provide engines, hose carts, hooks, ladders, and other implements for prevention and extinguishment of fire, and to provide for the use and management of the same, by voluntary or paid fire companies or otherwise;
(44) To regulate and prevent the storage of gun powder, tar, pitch, resin, coal oil, benzine, turpentine, hemp, cotton, nitroglycerine, petroleum, or any of the products thereof, and other combustible or explosive material, and the use of lights in stables, shops, and other places, and the building of bonfires also to restrain the use of fire works, fire crackers, torpedoes, roman candles, sky rockets, and other pyrotechnic displays;
(45) To establish and erect a city jail, house of correction, and work house for the confinement and reformation of disorderly persons, vagrants, tramps, idle persons, and persons convicted of violating any city ordinance; and make rules and regulations for the government of the same, and appoint necessary jailors and keepers;
(46) To use the county jail for the confinement or punishment of offenders, subject to such conditions as are imposed by law, and with the consent of the County Board of Commissioners; and to regulate the police of the city, and pass and enforce all necessary police ordinances;
(47) To prevent and suppress riots, routs, affrays, noises, disturbances, and disorderly assemblies in any public or private places;
(48) To prohibit and punish cruelty to animals;
(49) To restrain and punish vagrants, mendicants, and prostitutes;
(50) To declare what shall be a nuisance, and to abate the same, and impose fines upon parties, who my create, continue, or suffer nuisances to exist;
(51) To appoint a Board of Health and prescribe its powers and duties;
(52) To erect and establish hospitals and medical dispensaries, and to control and regulate the same;
(53) To do all acts and make all regulations which may be necessary or expedient for the promotion of health, or the suppression of disease;
(54) To establish and regulate cemeteries within or without the corporation and acquire lands therefor, by purchase or otherwise, and cause cemeteries to be removed, and prohibit establishment within one mile of the corporation;
(55) To regulate, restrain, and prohibit the running at large of horses, cattle, swine, sheep, goats, geese, and dogs, and to impose a tax or license on dogs;
(56) To direct the location, and regulate the management and construction of slaughter houses, livery stables, and blacksmith shops within or within one mile of the limits of the corporation;
(57) To prohibit any offensive or unwholesome business or establishment within or within one mile of the limits of the corporation;
(58) To compel the owner of any grocery, cellar, stable, pig sty, privy, sewer, or other unwholesome or nauseous house or place to cleanse, abate, or remove the same, and to regulate the location of the same;
(59) To provide for the taking of the city census, but no city census shall be taken oftener than once in three years;
(60) To provide for the erection and care of all public buildings necessary for the use of the city;
(61) The City Council shall have power by condemnation or otherwise to extend any street, alley, or highway over or across, or to construct any sewer under or through, any railroad track, right-of-way, or land of any railroad company (within the corporate limits); but where no compensation is made to such railroad company, the city shall restore such railroad track, right-of-way, or land to its former state, or in a sufficient manner not to have impaired its usefulness;
(62) To prevent and regulate the rolling of hoops, playing of ball, flying of kites, or any other amusement or practice having a tendency to annoy persons passing in the streets or on the sidewalks, or to frighten teams and horses;
(63) To provide, by ordinance, that all the paper, printing, stationery blanks, fuel, and all the supplies needed for the use of the city shall be furnished by contract let to the lowest responsible bidder;
(64) To purchase, erect, lease, rent, manage, and maintain any system of water works, hydrants, and supply of water, telegraphing, fire signal, or fire apparatus that may be of use in the prevention or extinguishment of fires, and to pass all ordinances, penal or otherwise, that shall be necessary for the full protection, maintenance, management, and control of the property so leased, purchased, or erected; and
(65) To pass all ordinances and rules, and make all regulations, proper or necessary, to carry into effect the powers grated to the cities, with such fines or penalties as the City Council shall deem proper; provided, no fine or penalty shall exceed $100 and no imprisonment shall exceed three months for one offense.
(B) The Mayor shall have within his or her power the following, which may be considered duties with regard to the capacity of his or her position:
(1) The Mayor shall have those duties as prescribed by the laws of the state, the ordinance of the city, and the City Council in accordance to the above mentioned state law;
(2) He or she shall appoint the: Finance Officer; Fire Chief; Health Officer; Zoning Inspector; and City Attorney;
(3) Except as otherwise provided by law, he or she shall have the power to remove from office any officer appointed by him or her;
(4) Within the jurisdiction of the municipality, he or she shall have all the powers conferred by law upon sheriffs to suppress disorder and to keep the peace;
(5) He or she shall have the power, when necessary, to call upon every male inhabitant of the city over the age of 18 years to aid in the enforcing of laws and ordinances;
(6) He or she may release any person imprisoned for violating a city ordinance, or remit any fine or penalty for violation thereof;
(7) He or she shall annually provide the City Council with information relative to the affairs of the city, and recommend, for its consideration, such measures as he or she deems expedient; and
(8) He or she shall also have the power to sign or veto any ordinance or measure passed by the City Council, and the power to veto any part or any time of any ordinance or resolution appropriating money.
(Ord. 31, passed 7-8-1895; Ord. 413A, passed - -)