
Senate Bill No. 555
(By Senators Ross, Caldwell, Kessler, Minard and Redd)
____________
[Originating in the Committee on the Judiciary;
reported March 21, 2001.]
_____________
A BILL to amend and reenact section five, article twelve, chapter
eight of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred
thirty-one, as amended, relating generally to the power,
duties and authority of municipalities;
authorizing
municipalities and private solid waste motor carriers to
negotiate an agreement for continued private solid waste
collection services in an annexed area; and limiting the
agreement to a period of no more than three years.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:

That section five, article twelve, chapter eight of the code
of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended,
be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 12. GENERAL AND SPECIFIC POWERS, DUTIES AND ALLIED
RELATIONS OF MUNICIPALITIES, GOVERNING BODIES AND MUNICIPAL
OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES; SUITS AGAINST MUNICIPALITIES.
§8-12-5. General powers of every municipality and the governing
body thereof.
In addition to the powers and authority granted by: (i) The
constitution of this state; (ii) other provisions of this chapter;
(iii) other general law; and (iv) any charter and to the extent not
inconsistent or in conflict with any of the foregoing except
special legislative charters, every municipality and the governing
body thereof shall have plenary power and authority therein by
ordinance or resolution, as the case may require, and by
appropriate action based thereon:
(1) To lay off, establish, construct, open, alter, curb,
recurb, pave or repave and keep in good repair, or vacate,
discontinue and close, streets, avenues, roads, alleys, ways,
sidewalks, drains and gutters, for the use of the public, and to
improve and light the same and have them kept free from
obstructions on or over them which have not been authorized
pursuant to the succeeding provisions of this subdivision; and,
subject to such terms and conditions as the governing body shall
prescribe, to permit, without in any way limiting the power and
authority granted by the provisions of article sixteen of this
chapter, any person to construct and maintain a passageway,
building or other structure overhanging or crossing the airspace above a public street, avenue, road, alley, way, sidewalk or
crosswalk, but before any such permission for any person to
construct and maintain a passageway, building or other structure
overhanging or crossing any such airspace is granted, a public
hearing thereon shall be held by the governing body after
publication of a notice of the date, time, place and purpose of
such public hearing has been published as a Class I legal
advertisement in compliance with the provisions of article three,
chapter fifty-nine of this code and the publication area for such
publication shall be the municipality: Provided, That any such
permit so granted shall automatically cease and terminate in the
event of abandonment and nonuse thereof for the purposes intended
for a period of ninety days and all rights therein or thereto shall
revert to such municipality for its use and benefit;
(2) To provide for the opening and excavation of streets,
avenues, roads, alleys, ways, sidewalks, crosswalks and public
places belonging to the municipality and regulate the conditions
under which any such opening may be made;
(3) To prevent by proper penalties the throwing, depositing or
permitting to remain on any street, avenue, road, alley, way,
sidewalk, square or other public place any glass, scrap iron,
nails, tacks, wire, other litter or any offensive matter or anything likely to injure the feet of individuals or animals or the
tires of vehicles;
(4) To regulate the use of streets, avenues, roads, alleys,
ways, sidewalks, crosswalks and public places belonging to the
municipality, including the naming or renaming thereof, and to
consult with local postal authorities, the division of highways and
the directors of county emergency communications centers to assure
uniform, nonduplicative addressing on a permanent basis;
(5) To regulate the width of streets, avenues and roads and,
subject to the provisions of article eighteen of this chapter, to
order the sidewalks, footways and crosswalks to be paved, repaved,
curbed or recurbed and kept in good order, free and clean, by the
owners or occupants thereof or of the real property next adjacent
thereto;
(6) To establish, construct, alter, operate and maintain, or
discontinue, bridges, tunnels and ferries and approaches thereto;
(7) To provide for the construction and maintenance of water
drains, the drainage of swamps or marshlands and drainage systems;
(8) To provide for the construction, maintenance and covering
over of watercourses;
(9) To control and administer the waterfront and waterways of
the municipality and to acquire, establish, construct, operate and maintain and regulate flood control works, wharves and public
landings, warehouses and all adjuncts and facilities for navigation
and commerce and the utilization of the waterfront and waterways
and adjacent property;
(10) To prohibit the accumulation and require the disposal of
garbage, refuse, debris, wastes, ashes, trash and other similar
accumulations whether on private or public property;: Provided,
That, in the event
the municipality annexes an area which has been
receiving solid waste collection services from a certificated solid
waste motor carrier, the municipality and the solid waste motor
carrier may negotiate an agreement for continuation of the private
solid waste motor carrier services for a period of time, not to
exceed three years, during which time the certificated solid waste
motor carrier may continue to provide exclusive solid waste
collection services in the annexed territory;
(11) To construct, establish, acquire, equip, maintain and
operate incinerator plants and equipment and all other facilities
for the efficient removal and destruction of garbage, refuse,
wastes, ashes, trash and other similar matters;
(12) To regulate or prohibit the purchase or sale of articles
intended for human use or consumption which are unfit for such use
or consumption, or which may be contaminated or otherwise unsanitary;
(13) To prevent injury or annoyance to the public or
individuals from anything dangerous, offensive or unwholesome;
(14) To regulate the keeping of gunpowder and other
combustibles;
(15) To make regulations guarding against danger or damage by
fire;
(16) To arrest, convict and punish any individual for carrying
about his person any revolver or other pistol, dirk, bowie knife,
razor, slingshot, billy, metallic or other false knuckles or any
other dangerous or other deadly weapon of like kind or character;
(17) To arrest, convict and punish any person for importing,
printing, publishing, selling or distributing any pornographic
publications;
(18) To arrest, convict and punish any person for keeping a
house of ill fame, or for letting to another person any house or
other building for the purpose of being used or kept as a house of
ill fame, or for knowingly permitting any house owned by him or
under his control to be kept or used as a house of ill fame, or for
loafing, boarding or loitering in a house of ill fame or
frequenting same;
(19) To prevent and suppress conduct and practices which are immoral, disorderly, lewd, obscene and indecent;
(20) To prevent the illegal sale of intoxicating liquors,
drinks, mixtures and preparations;
(21) To arrest, convict and punish any individual for driving
or operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated or under the
influence of liquor, drugs or narcotics;
(22) To arrest, convict and punish any person for gambling or
keeping any gaming tables, commonly called "A, B, C" or "E, O"
table, or faro bank or keno table, or table of like kind, under any
denomination, whether the gaming table be played with cards, dice
or otherwise, or any person who shall be a partner or concerned in
interest, in keeping or exhibiting such table or bank, or keeping
or maintaining any gaming house or place, or betting or gambling
for money or anything of value;
(23) To provide for the elimination of hazards to public
health and safety and to abate or cause to be abated anything which
in the opinion of a majority of the governing body is a public
nuisance;
(24) To license, or for good cause to refuse to license in a
particular case, or in its discretion to prohibit in all cases, the
operation of pool and billiard rooms and the maintaining for hire
of pool and billiard tables notwithstanding the general law as to state licenses for any such business and the provisions of section
four, article thirteen of this chapter; and when the municipality,
in the exercise of its discretion, shall have refused to grant a
license to operate a pool or billiard room, mandamus shall not lie
to compel such municipality to grant such license unless it shall
clearly appear that the refusal of the municipality to grant such
license is discriminatory or arbitrary; and in the event that the
municipality determines to license any such business, the
municipality shall have plenary power and authority and it shall be
the duty of its governing body to make and enforce reasonable
ordinances regulating the licensing and operation of such
businesses;
(25) To protect places of divine worship and to preserve peace
and order in and about the premises where held;
(26) To regulate or prohibit the keeping of animals or fowls
and to provide for the impounding, sale or destruction of animals
or fowls kept contrary to law or found running at large;
(27) To arrest, convict and punish any person for cruelly,
unnecessarily or needlessly beating, torturing, mutilating,
killing, overloading or overdriving or willfully depriving of
necessary sustenance any domestic animal;
(28) To provide for the regular building of houses or other structures, for the making of division fences by the owners of
adjacent premises and for the drainage of lots by proper drains and
ditches;
(29) To provide for the protection and conservation of shade
or ornamental trees, whether on public or private property, and for
the removal of trees or limbs of trees in a dangerous condition;
(30) To prohibit with or without zoning the location of
occupied house trailers or mobile homes in certain residential
areas;
(31) To regulate the location and placing of signs,
billboards, posters and similar advertising;
(32) To erect, establish, construct, acquire, improve,
maintain and operate a gas system, a waterworks system, an electric
system or sewer system and sewage treatment and disposal system, or
any combination of the foregoing (subject to all of the pertinent
provisions of articles nineteen and twenty of this chapter and
particularly to the limitations or qualifications on the right of
eminent domain set forth in said articles), within or without the
corporate limits of the municipality, except that the municipality
shall not erect any such system partly without the corporate limits
of the municipality to serve persons already obtaining service from
an existing system of the character proposed and where such system is by the municipality erected, or has heretofore been so erected,
partly within and partly without the corporate limits of the
municipality, the municipality shall have the right to lay and
collect charges for service rendered to those served within and
those served without the corporate limits of the municipality and
to prevent injury to such system or the pollution of the water
thereof and its maintenance in a healthful condition for public use
within the corporate limits of the municipality;
(33) To acquire watersheds, water and riparian rights, plant
sites, rights-of-way and any and all other property and
appurtenances necessary, appropriate, useful, convenient or
incidental to any such system, waterworks or sewage treatment and
disposal works, as aforesaid, subject to all of the pertinent
provisions of articles nineteen and twenty of this chapter;
(34) To establish, construct, acquire, maintain and operate
and regulate markets and prescribe the time of holding the same;
(35) To regulate and provide for the weighing of articles sold
or for sale;
(36) To establish, construct, acquire, maintain and operate
public buildings, municipal buildings or city halls, auditoriums,
arenas, jails, juvenile detention centers or homes, motor vehicle
parking lots or any other public works;
(37) To establish, construct, acquire, provide, equip,
maintain and operate recreational parks, playgrounds and other
recreational facilities for public use and in this connection also
to proceed in accordance with the provisions of article two,
chapter ten of this code;
(38) To establish, construct, acquire, maintain and operate a
public library or museum or both for public use;
(39) To provide for the appointment and financial support of
a library board in accordance with the provisions of article one,
chapter ten of this code;
(40) To establish and maintain a public health unit in
accordance with the provisions of section two, article two, chapter
sixteen of this code, which unit shall exercise its powers and
perform its duties subject to the supervision and control of the
West Virginia board of health and state department of health;
(41) To establish, construct, acquire, maintain and operate
hospitals, sanitaria and dispensaries;
(42) To acquire, by purchase, condemnation or otherwise, land
within or near the corporate limits of the municipality for
providing and maintaining proper places for the burial of the dead
and to maintain and operate the same and regulate interments
therein upon such terms and conditions as to price and otherwise as may be determined by the governing body and, in order to carry into
effect such authority, the governing body may acquire any cemetery
or cemeteries already established;
(43) To exercise general police jurisdiction over any
territory without the corporate limits owned by the municipality or
over which it has a right-of-way;
(44) To protect and promote the public morals, safety, health,
welfare and good order;
(45) To adopt rules for the transaction of business and the
government and regulation of its governing body;
(46) Except as otherwise provided, to require and take such
bonds from such officers, when deemed necessary, payable to the
municipality, in its corporate name, with such sureties and in such
penalty as the governing body may see fit, conditioned upon the
faithful discharge of their duties;
(47) To require and take from such employees and contractors
such bonds in such penalty, with such sureties and with such
conditions, as the governing body may see fit;
(48) To investigate and inquire into all matters of concern to
the municipality or its inhabitants;
(49) To establish, construct, require, maintain and operate
such instrumentalities, other than free public schools, for the instruction, enlightenment, improvement, entertainment, recreation
and welfare of the municipality's inhabitants as the governing body
may deem necessary or appropriate for the public interest;
(50) To create, maintain and operate a system for the
enumeration, identification and registration, or either, of the
inhabitants of the municipality and visitors thereto, or such
classes thereof as may be deemed advisable;
(51) To appropriate and expend not exceeding twenty-five cents
per capita per annum for advertising the municipality and the
entertainment of visitors;
(52) To conduct programs to improve community relations and
public relations generally and to expend municipal revenue for such
purposes;
(53) To reimburse applicants for employment by the
municipality for travel and other reasonable and necessary expenses
actually incurred by such applicants in traveling to and from such
municipality to be interviewed;
(54) To provide revenue for the municipality and appropriate
the same to its expenses;
(55) To create and maintain an employee benefits fund which
shall not exceed one tenth of one percent of the annual payroll
budget for general employee benefits and which shall be set up for the purpose of stimulating and encouraging employees to develop and
implement cost-saving ideas and programs and to expend moneys from
such fund for such purposes;
(56) To enter into reciprocal agreements with governmental
subdivisions or agencies of any state sharing a common border for
the protection of people and property from fire and for emergency
medical services and for the reciprocal use of equipment and
personnel for such purposes; and
(57) To provide penalties for the offenses and violations of
law mentioned in this section, subject to the provisions of section
one, article eleven of this chapter, and such penalties shall not
exceed any penalties provided in this chapter and chapter sixty-one
of this code for like offenses and violations.
______
(NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to allow municipalities
and private solid waste collection services to negotiate an
agreement to permit the private solid waste collection service to
continue operating in an annexed area for a period of up to three
years.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added.)