(a) Council shall provide for the care, supervision, control and improvement of public highways, streets, avenues, alleys, sidewalks, public grounds, bridges, aqueducts and viaducts within the City. The Director of Public Works shall have supervision of these matters in accordance with Section 123.03.
(b) When it deems it necessary, Council may cause any street, alley or public highway to be opened, straightened, altered, diverted, narrowed or widened. No street or alley dedicated to public use by the proprietor of ground in the City shall be deemed a public street or alley, or under the care or control of Council unless the dedication is accepted and confirmed by an ordinance passed for such purpose.
(c) Council, when vacating any street or part of street or changing the name of any street, may include in one ordinance the change of name or the vacation or narrowing of more than one street, avenue, or alley, but before vacating any street or part thereof, or narrowing any street, Council shall first adopt a resolution declaring its intention so to do. The Clerk of Council shall cause notice of such declaration to be served in the manner that the service of summons is required to be made upon all persons whose property abuts upon the part of the street affected by the proposed vacation or narrowing, and by publication on the official website of the City. That notice shall state the time and place when objections can be heard before the Board of Revision of Assessments. Upon the report of the Board of Revision of Assessments approving the proposed vacation or narrowing Council may by ordinance declare such vacation or narrowing, and such order of Council vacating or narrowing a street or alley which has been dedicated to public use by the proprietor shall, to the extent to which it is vacated or narrowed, operate as a revocation of the acceptance thereof by Council, but the right of way and easement therein of any lot owner shall not be impaired thereby.
(Ord. 5-18. Passed 6-18-2018.)
The Board of Revision of Assessments shall consist of the Mayor, Director of Law, the Director of Finance, the Director of Public Works and the President of Council. The Mayor shall be the president of the board and the Director of Finance shall be the secretary thereof. The board shall meet at such times and place as is provided by its rules, and shall hear all matters coming before it un-der the authority of the Charter and Code.
(Ord. 5-18. Passed 6-18-2018.)
(a) Grant. Council may grant permission to any individual, company or corporation to construct and operate a public utility in the streets and public grounds of the City. It may prescribe the kind and quality of service or the product to be furnished, the rate or rates to be charged therefor, and any terms and conditions conducive to the public interest; and also the manner in which the streets and public grounds shall be used and occupied. Such grant or any amendment or renewal thereof shall be for such period of time as Council may determine, but it
shall not exceed a period of 25 years.
(b) Renewals. Council may renew any grant for the construction or operation of any utility, at its expiration, upon such tetms as may be conducive to the public interest. All such grants and renewals thereof may reserve to the City the right to purchase all the property of the utility in the streets and highways and elsewhere used in, or useful for, the operation of the utility, at a price either fixed by ordinance, or to be fixed in the manner provided by the ordinance making the grant or renewal of the grant. Nothing in such ordinance shall prevent the City from acquiring the property of any such utility by condemnation proceedings or in any other lawful mode; but all such methods of acquisition shall be alternative to the power to purchase, reserved in the grant or renewal as hereinbefore provided. No ordinance making such purchase shall be valid unless it shall expressly provide therein that the price to be paid by the City for the property that may be acquired by it from such utility by purchase, condemnation or otherwise, shall exclude all value of such grant or renewal. Upon the acquisition by the City of the property of any utility by purchase, condemnation or otherwise, all grants or renewals shall at once terminate.
(c) Extension. Council may grant to any individual, company or corporation operating a public utility, the right to extend the appliances and service of such utility. All such extensions shall become a part of the aggregate property of the utility, and shall be subject to all the obligations and reserved rights applicable to the property of the utility by virtue of the ordinance providing for its construction and operation. The right to use and maintain any such extension shall expire with the original grant of the utility to which the extension was made or any renewal thereof.
(d) Consents. No consent of the owner of property abutting on any highway or public ground shall be required by Council as a condition of its authority to authorize the construction, extension, maintenance or operation of any public utility by original grant or renewal.
(e) Regulations. All rights granted for the construction and operation of public utilities in the City shall be subject to both the additional, more specific regulations found within the Code and the continuing right of Council to require such reconstruction, relocation, change or discontinuance of the appliances used by the utility in the streets, alleys, avenues, and highways of the City, as shall in the opinion of Council be necessary in the public interest. In ordering any such reconstruction, relocation, change or discontinuance Council shall provide for such alteration in the rates for service and in the terms upon which purchase is authorized to be made by the City, as shall be necessary or equitable to protect the owner of the utility against loss of property value.
(Ord. 24-18. Passed 6-13-2018.)