CHAPTER 13. COURT OF COMMON COUNCIL. § 162. Composition; powers. There shall be a court of common council of said city, which shall consist of two separate branches, a board of aldermen and the common council board, who shall convene separately, except in the cases otherwise specified; and in whom shall be vested the government, control and management of said city, its property and its affairs, subject to the exceptions otherwise set forth. The board of aldermen shall be composed of all the aldermen of said city, and the common council board of all the common councilmen of said city; and each branch of said court shall be final judge of the election returns, and validity of elections, and qualification of its own members. Neither the mayor nor any member of either branch of the court of common council of the city of Hartford shall be chosen or appointed to any other office by such court of common council of said city. § 163. Passage of a corporate act. Every vote, resolution, ordinance or by-law, in the passage of which both the branches of said court shall have concurred by a majority of each, shall be submitted to the mayor for his approval; and if not by him disapproved, the same shall become valid and effectual as a corporate act of said city: if disapproved, the same shall be by him returned to the next court of common council, each board of which shall thereupon reconsider the vote, resolution, ordinance or by-law, and if a majority of each board shall thereupon concur in again. adopting or enacting the same, it shall thereupon become a valid corporate act; it being expressly provided that no vote or resolution of said common council, ordering a public work or improvement, which shall require an expenditure of more than ten thousand dollars, shall be obligatory on said city, unless approved by a majority vote of a city meeting, duly warned and holden for that purpose; which vote shall be by ballot or voting machines. § 164. Officers; quorum. The mayor shall be the presiding officer of the board of aldermen, and of all joint conventions of the court of common council, and be empowered to give 1859. 5 S. L. 320. 1872. 7 S. L. 259. Idem. 1859. 5 S. L. 324. 1895. 12 S. L. 629. 1859. 5 S. L. 321. a casting vote in all cases where the action of either said board § 165. Compensation of town and city officers. The compensation to be paid the selectmen, the town clerk, and the registrars of voters of the town of Hartford, except as provided (in the consolidation act, 1895, Vol. 12 S. L., p. 624) or by the statute law of this state, shall be fixed by the common council, which shall also prescribe the compensation of all city and town officers not in said consolidation act or by legislative enactment otherwise provided for, and all said officers shall be paid from the city treasury. § 166. Power to make, alter, and repeal ordinances. The court of common council shall have power by a majority of the members of each branch, present and absent, subject to the approval or disapproval of the mayor to make, alter and repeal ordinances for the following purposes: To regulate trade, markets and commerce, and to regulate weights and measures, in conformity with the lawful standards thereof, within the limits of said city: To manage, regulate, and control the finances and property, real and personal, of the city, and regulate the borrowing of money by the city for any purpose, for which said court are authorized to lay taxes; to provide for the due authentication, execution, and delivery of deeds, grants and releases of city property, and evidences of debt issued by said city; to prevent and secure the removal of all nuisances injurious to health, or offensive to the public, at the expense of the owner of the premises where such nuisance exists, or otherwise; for the laying out, altering, establishing and making highways, streets, parks, public grounds, and walks, openings for the circulation of air, building lines, drains and sewers; to drain and raise low lands; to make, repair, purify, light and keep open and safe for public use and travel, and free from encroachment or obstruction, the streets, highways, passways and public gounds and places in said city, which is hereby constituted a highway district by itself; to secure the safety of persons passing through or in the same, by regulating fireworks, shows, parades, and rendezvous, processions and music, the speed of animals, vehicles and cars, the running at large of animals through or in any part of said city, and the impounding of the same; to protect and preserve trees and other ornaments of public places; to regulate or prohibit the excavation or opening of streets, highways, and public grounds for public or private purposes, and the location of any work or thing therein, whether temporary or permanent, upon or under the surface thereof, and the removal of buildings upon or through the same; to keep the same quiet and orderly, and free from undue noise upon the Lord's day, and regulate and prohibit the ringing of bells, and crying of goods in said city; and all things appertaining thereto; to restrain cruelty to animals, and inhuman sports; to prescribe the forms of proceeding in all cases of taking land for public use within said city, not especially prescribed; to prevent vice and immorality, preserve public peace and good order; prevent and quell riots and disorderly assemblages, suppress gambling houses, and houses of ill fame, and disorderly houses; and to confer upon the 18 8. L. 892. mayor and police officers of the city all powers necessary for such purposes: To regulate or prohibit swimming or bathing in public or exposed places within said city; to prevent and punish trespasses in gardens, cemeteries, and enclosures and public buildings: To regulate the burial of the dead, and provide for the registration of the deaths and burials in said city: To regulate the mode of taxation for city purposes: To provide and regulate and prescribe the duties of a city watch, and city police force; and to confer upon city watchmen and policemen the ordinary powers of constables of towns, within the limits of the city; and to punish the resistance, or obstruction of public officers in the discharge of their duty: 1901. 1859. 5 S. L. 322. 82 To organize and regulate a fire department and fire apparatus; to protect said city from exposures to fire, regulate the mode of building, and the materials used for building, or altering buildings within said city, or any part thereof, and the mode of using any buildings therein, when such regulations seem expedient for the purpose of preserving said city from the dangers of fire: To license and regulate hacks or carriages, the charges of hackmen and public drivers, cartmen, and truckmen: To prohibit and regulate the bringing in, carrying out or through, or storing gunpowder in said city: To provide forms of oaths for all officers of said city elected by city meeting, or appointed by the court of common council: To regulate the width of streets, highways, and alleys: To provide for the manner of warning city meetings, and meetings of the court of common council, and times and places of holding the same: To provide for bonds and sureties of any officer chosen by said city, or by said court of common council, and penalties for the refusal of any such officer, or of any juror of the city court to serve; to provide for the election and prescribe the duties of city surveyors, port wardens, street commissioners, public weighers, officers of the fire department, sealers of weights and measures, health officers, inspectors of any kind of produce of the United States, brought to said city for sale or exhibition, and such other functionaries as are proper for the administration of the affairs of said city, and the proper regulation of trade and commerce thereof: To provide for the election and prescribe the duties of officers of said court, including the clerks of each board: To prescribe all the incidents of the annual election of said city, except in matters expressly regulated: To prevent illegal voting at city meetings: To regulate the duties of the collector of city taxes, and to provide the mode of collecting the same: To confer the freedom of the city on persons living out of the limits of the same: To regulate the location of stationary steam boilers, barns, and out-houses, sinks, and drains, in said city: To prescribe the salaries and compensation of all officers of said city, and the duties of such officers, not expressly defined by law: To carry out all the powers conferred and duties imposed on said court in reference to highways and public works: To prevent illegal practices with dead bodies in medical institutions or elsewhere in said city: To provide that assessments of benefits for any public work shall be a lien upon the land or real estate on account of which said assessment is made; which lien may be foreclosed at the suit of the city, in the same manner as a mortgaged incumbrance: To provide for the removal or expulsion of any officer on account of corruption or misfeasance in office: To prescribe oaths of city officers: To prescribe the time and place of holding the court of said city, where no express provision is made concerning the same. To impose upon and delegate to such department or commission of the city of Hartford as it deems best the care, management, and control of all city cemeteries or burying grounds; and such department or commission shall assume and carry out such duties so imposed and delegated. Such department or commission shall be limited in expenditures for such purposes by the amount annually appropriated therefor by the court of common council. Said court of common council shall also have exclusive power ⚫ to lay taxes on the polls and ratable estate within said city sufficient to defray all lawful expenses incurred by said city, according to the corporate powers hereby granted or recognized.* § 167. Penalties and forfeitures. And said court of common council may impose and inflict penalties and forfeitures of goods and chattels, for the violation of ordinances, which penalties and forfeitures shall be recoverable by the attorney of the city before the city court in an action of debt, brought in the name of the city of Hartford, for the use of the city treasury; and in such action no appeal shall be allowed. The violation of any ordinance *This is the only provision that we find giving the Common Council the power of taxation, though that power seems to be recognized in the last sentence of § 4. If printed in the connection in which it is originally found it would come between Sections 113 and 114 hereof. But there can be little doubt that it is general in its scope. In 6 S. L. 315 the "corporate powers hereby granted would seem to refer only to powers relating to highways and public works. But the words are taken from the seventh section of the Revised Charter of 1859, 5 S. L. 321, in which the word "hereby " apparently refers to the whole charter. The intent was undoubtedly the same in 6 S. L. 315, though by the draughtsman's error that act was made a repeal and substitute rather than an amendment to section 7. 1907. S. L. 6 S. L. 315. 1859. 5 S. L. 323. |