CHAPTER 201

An Act to amend and reenact § 4 and §§ 18 and 14, as amended,
Chapter 288 of the Acts of Assembly of 1924, approved March
1924, which provided a charter for the town of Salem, the secti
relating to powers of the town and town ordinances. CH 8:

Approved March 2, 1956

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

1. That § 4 and §§ 13 and 14, as amended, of Chapter 288 of the A
of Assembly of 1924, approved March 20, 1924 be amended and reenac
as follows:

§ 4. Powers of the town of Salem.—lIn addition to the powers m
tioned in Section two hereof, the said town of Salem shall have the -
lowing powers:

(1) To raise annually by taxes and assessments in said town s'
sums of money as the council thereof shall deem necessary for the purpo
of said town, and in such manner as said council shall deem expedie
in accordance with the Constitution and general laws of this State and
the United States; provided, however, that it shall impose no tax on
bonds of said town.

(2) To impose special or local assessments for local improveme
and enforce payment thereof, subject, however, to such limitations 1
204 ACTS OF ASSEMBLY [va., 1956

scribed by the Constitution of Virginia as may be in force at the time of
the imposition of such special or local assessments. oa.

(3) Subject to the provisions of the Constitution of Virginia, and
of this charter, to contract debts, borrow money and make and issue
evidence of indebtedness.

) To expend the money of the town for all lawful purposes. _

(5) To acquire by purchase, gift, devise, condemnation, or otherwise,
property, real or personal, or any estate or interest therein, within or
without the town or State and for any of the purposes of the town; and
to hold, improve, sell, lease, mortgage, pledge or otherwise dispose of the
same or any part thereof, including any property now owned by the town.

(6) To acquire, in any lawful manner, for the purpose of encourag-
ing commerce, manufacture, education, and the building of homes, lands
within and without the town, not exceeding at any one time one thousand
acres in the aggregate, and from time to time, to sell, dispose of, lease, or
donate the same or any part thereof for commercial, industrial, educa-
tional, or residential uses and purposes, including any land now owned by
the town, and including the power to donate any land now or hereafter
owned by the town for hospital purposes.

(7) To make and adopt a comprehensive plan for the town, and to
that end all plats and re-plats subdividing any land within the town into
streets, alleys, roads, and lots or tracts shall be submitted to and approved
by the council before such plats or re-plats are filed for record or recorded
in the office of the clerk of the circuit court of the county of Roanoke,
Virginia.

(8) To construct, maintain, regulate and operate public improve-
ments of all kinds, including municipal and other buildings, armories,
comfort stations, markets, and all buildings and structures necessary or
appropriate for the use and proper operation of the various departments
of the town; and to acquire by condemnation or otherwise all lands,
riparian and other rights and easements necessary for such improvements,
or any of them.

(9) To own, operate and maintain water works and to acquire in
any lawful manner in any county of the State such water, lands, property
rights and riparian rights as the council of said town may deem necessary
for the purpose of providing an adequate water supply for said town and
of piping or conducting the same; to lay all necessary mains; and service
lines, either within or without the corporate limits of said town for the
distribution of water to its customers and consumers, both within and
without the corporate limits of the said town, and to charge and collect
water rents therefor; to erect and maintain all necessary dams, pumping
stations and other works in connection therewith; to make reasonable
rules and regulations for promoting the purity of its said water supply and
for protecting the same from pollution; and for this purpose to exercise
full police powers and sanitary patrol over all lands comprised within the
limits of the watershed tributary to any such water supply wherever such
lands may be located in this State; to impose and enforce adequate penal-
ties for the violation of any such rules and regulations; and to prevent
by injunction any pollution or threatened pollution of such water supply
and any and all acts likely to impair the purity thereof; and for the pur-
pose of acquiring lands, interest in lands, property rights and riparian
rights or materials for any such use to exercise within the State all powers
of eminent domain provided by the laws of this State; provided, that the
lands which may be held in this State by said town for such purpose shall
not exceed, in the aggregate, thirty thousand acres, at any one time. For
any of the purposes aforesaid said town may, if the council shall so
determine, acquire by condemnation, purchase or otherwise, any estate or
interest in such lands or any of them in fee, reserving to the owner or
owners thereof such property rights or easements therein as may be pre-
scribed in the ordinance provided for such condemnation or purchase.

(10) To own, operate and maintain electric light and gas works,
either within er without the corporate limits of the said town for the
generating of electricity and the manufacture of gas for illuminating,
power and other purposes, and to supply the same, whether said gas and
electricity be generated or purchased by said town, to its customers and
consumers both within and without the corporate limits of the said town,
at such price and upon such terms as it may prescribe, and to that end it
may contract with owners of land and water power for the use thereof,
or may have the same condemned, and to purchase such electricity ‘and
gas from the owners thereof, and to furnish the same to its customers and
consumers, both within and without the corporate limits of the said town
at such price and on such terms as it may prescribe. —

(11) To exercise the power of eminent domain for the purpose of
acquiring or taking any or all spring, springs, water supplies, pipe lines,
reservoirs, land, property, easements, contracts, contract rights, property
rights, riparian rights, or any interest or interests therein, in the State
of Virginia, now or hereafter owned by any private, quasi-public service,
or public service corporation, incorporated under the laws of Virginia,
or any other State for the purpose of supplying, or supplying the town of
Salem, Virginia, or its inhabitants, with water, notwithstanding any pro-
vision to the contrary in Section thirty hundred and thirty-one, or other
section, or sections, of the Code of Virginia. .

(12) To establish, impose and enforce water, light and sewerage
rates, and rates and charges for public utilities, or other service, products,
or conveniences, operated, rendered or furnished by the town; and to
assess, or to cause to be assessed, water, light and sewerage rates and
charges directly against the owner or owners of the buildings, or against
the proper tenant or tenants, and may by ordinance provide that where
charges are made against tenants, the owner or owners shall be directly
liable in case such tenant or tenants fail to pay when the rates or charges
are assessed; and in event such rates and charges shall be assessed against
a tenant, then the said council may by an ordinance, require of such tenant
a deposit of such reasonable amount as may be by such ordinance pre-
scribed before furnishing such services to such tenant.

(18) To establish, open, widen, extend, grade, improve, construct,
maintain, light, sprinkle and clean, public highways, streets, alleys, boule-
vards and parkways, and to alter or close the same; to establish and
maintain parks, playgrounds, and other public grounds; to construct,
maintain and operate bridges, viaducts, subways, tunnels, sewers and
drains, and to regulate the use of all such highways, parks, public grounds
and works; to plant and maintain shade trees along the streets and upon
such public grounds; to prevent the obstruction of such streets and high-
ways, abolish and prevent grade crossings over the same by railroads in
the manner prescribed by general law for the elimination of grade cross-
ings; to require any railroad company operating a railroad at the place
where any highway or street is crossed within the town limits to erect
and maintain at such crossings any style of gate deemed proper and keep
a man in charge thereof, or keep a flagman at such crossing, during such
hours as the council may require in accordance with the provisions of
Section thirty-nine hundred and ninety-eight and other sections of the
Code of Virginia; and to regulate the length of time such crossings may
be closed due to any operations of the railroads; to regulate the operations,
weight of load, and speed of all cars and vehicles using the same, as well
as the operation and speed of all engines, cars and trains, or railroads
within the town; to regulate the services to be rendered, including route
traversed, and rates charged by buses, motor cars, cabs and other vehicles
206 ACTS OF ASSEMBLY [va., 1956

for the carrying of passengers and by vehicles for the transfer of baggage;
to permit railroads and street car lines to be built in the streets and
alleys, and to determine and designate the route and grade thereof; and
to specify and require the proper construction and maintenance of the
streets between the rails and on either side thereof for such distances as
sueh streets may be affected by the construction, operation, repair or
maintenance of such railroads or street ear lines, and to require the
reconstruction of so much of said streets as may be damaged by the
removal of such railroads or street car line; to permit or prohibit poles
and, wires for eleetric, telephone and telegraph purposes to be erected and
gas pipes to be laid in the streets and alleys, and to prescribe and collect
an annual charge for such privileges, heretofore or hereafter granted; to
require the owner or lessee of any electric light, telephone or telegraph
pole, or poles or wires now in use or hereafter erected, to change the
ocation or move the same; to require all telephone and telegraph wires
and all wires and cables carrying electricity, now in use or hereafter used,
to be placed in conduits underground and prescribe rules and regulations
for the construction and use of such conduits; to open, lay out, and improve
new streets across the track or tracks, yard or yards, of any railroad in
the town, and any such new or existing street or streets may cross any
such track or tracks, yard or yards, of any railroads in the town, in the
discretion of the council, either at grade, or pass above or below any such
existing structure or structures; provided, that after due notice to such
railroad company and full opportunity to be heard and after the council
shal] have decided whether such crossing shall be made at grade, or pass
above or below any such existing structure or structures, the plans and
specifications for such crossing as the council shall have determined upon,
shall be submitted to the principal agent of such railroad company in the
town, and in the event the town and railroad company cannot within sixty
days thereafter agree upon such plans and specifications, or cannot agree
in regard to the division of the cost of constructing such crossing, then
the town shall submit such plans and specifications to the State Corpora-
tion Commission, and the State Corporation Commission, after reasonable
notice to such railroad company and after hearing such evidence as either
party may adduce, shall approve, or revise and approve, the plans for
such crossing as the council shall have determined shall be made, or
substitute such other plans or character of crossing, whether at grade, over-
head or underpass, as the State Corporation Commission may deem proper
under all the facts, circumstances and conditions in the case, and the State
Corporation Commission shall determine what part of the cost of con-
structing such crossing shall be paid by the town, if any, and what part
by the railroad company, but in no event shall the town be required to
pay more than one-half thereof, and after such crossing shall have been
constructed, it shall be maintained, within the limits of the railroad right
of way, by such railroad company or by the lessee thereof; and to do all
other things whatsoever adapted to make said streets and highways safe,
convenient and attractive.

(1814) To acquire by gift, purchase, exchange, or by the exercise of
the power of eminent domain within this State, lands, and any interest
or estate in lands, rock quarries, gravel pits, sand pits, water and water
rights, and the necessary roadways thereto, either within or without the
town, and acquire and install machinery and equipment, and build the
necessary roads or tramroads thereto, and operate the same for the pur-
pose of producing materials required for the construction, repair and
maintenance of streets, highways, sidewalks, water works, reservoirs,
sewers, electric lights, public buildings, and any and all private purposes;
and to acquire by gift, purchase, exchange, or by the exercise of the power
of eminent domain within this State, lands and machinery and equipment,
CH. 201] ACTS OF ASSEMBLY 207

and build and operate a plant or plants for the preparation and mixing
of materials for the construction of improved streets and other public
improvements, and the maintenance and repair thereof, and to build and
operate coal tipples and yards in connection therewith. ;

_ (14) To construct and maintain, or aid in constructing and main-
taining, public roads, State highways, boulevards, parkways and bridges,
beyond and within ten miles of the limits of the town, in order to facilitate
public travel to and from said town and its suburbs, and to and from said
town and any property owned by said town, and situated beyond the
corporate limits thereof, regardless of distance, and to acquire land and
property rights necessary for such purpose by condemnation or otherwise.

_ (15) To establish, construct and maintain sanitary sewers, sewer
lines and systems, and to require the abutting property owners to connect
therewith and to establish, construct, maintain and operate sewerage
disposal plants, and to acquire by condemnation or otherwise within or
without the town, all lands, rights of way, riparian and other rights and
easements necessary for the purposes aforesaid, and to charge and collect
reasonable fees or assessments or costs of service for connecting with and
using the same.

(16) In connection with its system of sewerage, the town may con-
tinue to use the Roanoke River as heretofore.

(17) Subject to the provisions of the Constitution of Virginia and
of this charter to grant franchises for public utilities.

(18) To collect and dispose of sewage, offal, ashes, garbage, carcasses
of dead animals, and other refuse, and to make reasonable charges there-
for; and to acquire and operate reduction or other plants for the utilization
or destruction of such materials, or any of them; to contract for and
regulate the collection and disposal thereof, and to require and regulate
the collection and disposal thereof.

(19) To compel the abatement and removal of all nuisances within
the town or upon property owned by the town beyond its limits at the
expense of the person or persons causing the same, or of the owner or
occupant of the ground or premises whereon the same may be, and to
collect said expense by suit or motion or by distress and sale; to require
all lands, lots and other premises within the town to be kept clean and
sanitary and free from stagnant water, weeds, filth and unsightly de-
posits, or to make them so at the expense of the owners or occupants
thereof, and to collect said expense by suit or motion, or by distress and
sale; to regulate or prevent slaughter houses or other noisome or offen-
sive business within said town, the keeping of hogs or other animals,
poultry or other fowl therein, or the exercise of any dangerous or un-
wholesome business, trade or employment therein; to regulate the trans-
portation of all articles through the streets of the town; to compel the
abatement of smoke and dust, and prevent unnecessary noise; to regu-
late the location of stables and the manner in which they shall be kept
and constructed; to regulate the location, construction and operation
and maintenance of bill-boards and generally to define, prohibit, abate,
suppress and prevent all things detrimental to the health, morals,
aesthetics, safety, convenience and welfare of the inhabitants of the town;
and to require all owners or occupants of property having sidewalks in
front thereof to keep the same clean and sanitary, and free from all weeds,
filth and unsightly deposits.

(20) To inspect, test, measure and weigh any commodity or article
of consumption for use within the town, and to establish, regulate, license,
and inspect weights, meters, measures and scales.

(21) To provide by ordinance for a system of meat and milk inspec-
tion, and to appoint meat and milk inspectors, agents, or officers to carry
the same into effect, license, regulate, control and locate slaughter houses
208 ACTS OF ASSEMBLY [vA., 1956

within or without the corporate limits of the town, and for such services
of inspection to make reasonable charges therefor; and to provide such
reasonable penalties for the violation of such ordinances.

, (22) To extinguish and prevent fires and to compel citizens to render
assistance to the fire department in case of need, and to establish, regu-
late and control a fire department or division; to regulate the size, height,
materials and constructions of buildings, fences, walls, retaining walls
and other structures hereafter erected in such manner as the public
safety and conveniences may require; to remove or require to be removed
or reconstructed any building, structure or addition thereto which by
reason of dilapidation, defect of structure, or other causes, may have
become dangerous to life or property, or which may be erected contrary
to law; to establish and designate from time to time fire limits, within
which limits wooden buildings shall not be constructed, removed, added
to, enlarged or repaired, and to direct any or all future buildings within
such limits shall be constructed of stone, natural or artificial, concrete,
brick, iron or other fireproof material; and may enact stringent and effi-
cient laws for securing the safety of persons from fires in halls and build-
ings used for public assemblies, entertainments or amusements.

(28) To charge and to collect fees for permits to use public facilities
and for public service and privileges.

) To provide for the care, support and maintenance of children
and of sick, aged, insane or poor persons and paupers.

(25) To establish as hereinafter provided a child welfare board,
through which to provide for making money allowances to aid in main-
taining and educating poor and destitute children.

(26) To establish, organize and administer public schools and
libraries subject to the general laws establishing a standard of education
for the State.

(27) To provide and maintain, either within or without the town,
charitable, recreative, curative, corrective, detentive or penal institutions.

(28) To prevent any person having no visible means of support,
paupers and persons who may be dangerous to the peace or safety of the
town, from coming to said town from without the same; and for this
purpose to require the owner of any conveyance bringing such person
to the town to take such person back to the place whence he was brought,
or enter into bond with satisfactory security that such person shall not
become a charge upon said town within one year from the date of his
arrival; and also to expel therefrom any such person who has been in
said town less than six months; also to expel from the town all persons
found therein dangerous to the peace, safety and welfare of the town, or
any person who may be advocating the overthrow of the Federal, State,
or municipal government by force or violence or inciting the people, or
any of them, to riot, or to any unlawful effort against the social, govern-
mental, industrial, educational or moral welfare of the people.

(29) To provide for the preservation of the general health of the
inhabitants of said town, make regulations to secure the same, inspect
all foods and foodstuffs and prevent the introduction and sale in said
town of any articles or thing intended for human consumption, which is
adulterated, impure or otherwise dangerous to health, and to condemn,
seize and destroy or otherwise dispose of any such article or thing with-
out liability to the owner thereof; prevent the introduction or spread of
contagious or infectious diseases, and prevent and suppress disease gen-
erally; to provide and regulate hospitals within or without the town
limits, and if necessary to the suppression of diseases, to enforce the
removal of persons afflicted with contagious or infectious diseases to
hospitals provided for them; to construct and maintain or to aid in the
construction and maintenance of a hospital or hospitals for the use of
CH. 201] ACTS OF ASSEMBLY 209

the people of the town; to provide for the organization of a department
or bureau of health, to have the powers of a board of health for said
town, with the authority necessary for the prompt and efficent perform-
ance of its duties, with power to invest any or all the officials or employees
of such departments of health with such powers as the police officers of
the town have; to establish quarantine ground within or without the town
limits, and such quarantine regulations against infectious and contagious
diseases as the council may see fit, subject to the laws of the State and of
the United States. .

_ 30) To acquire by purchase, gift, devise, condemnation or other-
wise, lands, either within or without the town, or both, to be used, kept
and improved as a place for the interment of the dead, and to make and
enforce all necessary rules and regulations for the protection and use
thereof; and generally to regulate the burial and disposition of the dead.

(31) To accept and receive, unconditionally or upon conditions, abso-
lutely or in trust, gifts, grants, bequests and devises of any kind of
property, real or personal, for educational, charitable or other public pur-
poses ; and to do all the things and acts necessary to carry out the purposes
of such gifts, grants, bequests, and devises, with power to manage, main-
tain, operate, sell, lease or otherwise handle or dispose of the same, in
accordance with the terms and conditions of such gifts, grants, bequests
and devises.

_ (82) To acquire by purchase, gift, devise or condemnation property
adjoining its parks, or lots on which its monuments are located, or other
property used for public purposes, or in the vicinity of such parks, plats
or property which is used and maintained in such a manner as to impair
the beauty, usefulness or efficiency of such parks, plats or public property,
and may likewise acquire property adjacent to any street, the topography
of which, from its proximity thereto, impairs the convenient use of such
street, or renders impracticable, without extraordinary expense, the im-
provement of the same, and the town may subsequently dispose of the
property so acquired, making limitations as to the use thereof, which will
protect the beauty, usefulness, efficiency or convenience of such parks,
plats and property.

And when the town proposes to open or widen a street, or change the
channel of a creek, by taking any part of a block or square in such manner
that the value of the property abutting the proposed street or creek would
be injuriously affected, unless the property on such block or square is
replatted and the property line or lines readjusted, then and in that event
the town at the same time it acquires the land for said street or creek
channel may, in its discretion, also acquire by purchase, gift, condemna-
tion or otherwise, all or any part of the property on such squares or
blocks and may subsequently replat and dispose of the property so
acquired, in whole or in part, making such limitations as to the uses
thereof as it may see fit.

(33) To exercise full police powers and establish and maintain a
department or division of police; and to appoint one or more justices of
the peace whose jurisdiction shall be confined to the territorial limits of
the town and whose power and authority shall be limited to the issuance
of attachments, warrants and subpoenas, and to the granting of bail in
any case in which justices of the peace are authorized to grant bail and
to receive their fees therefor. All such attachments, warrants and sub-
poenas shall be returnable before the mayor, or other trial officer, of the
town for action thereon. Nothing herein shall be construed as prohibiting
the appointment of any person who may, at the time of such appointment,
be serving in the capacity of a justice of the peace for the county of
Roanoke, or any magisterial district thereof.
(34) To restrain and punish drunkards, vagrants and street beggars;
to prevent vice and immorality; to preserve the peace and good order; to
prevent and quell riots, disturbances and disorderly assemblages; to sup-
press houses of ill-fame and gambling houses; to prevent and punish lewd,
indecent and disorderly exhibitions in said town; and to expel therefrom
persons guilty of such conduct who have not resided therein as much as
one year.

_ (35) To license and regulate the holding and location of shows,
circuses, public exhibitions, carnivals and similar shows or fairs, or pro-
hibit the holding of the same or any of them within the town. of

(36) To make and enforce ordinances similar to the prohibition laws
of the State.

(37) To establish, maintain and operate a market or markets in and
for said town; to prescribe the times and places for holding the same; and
to make and enforce such regulations as shall be necessary to prevent
huckstering, forestalling or regrating.

_ (38) To provide for the development of power and light and the
distribution and sale of same, and to construct, own, maintain, and
eperate facilities necessary thereto, and to acquire by condemnation or
otherwise, within or without the town, land, interests in land, water,
power sites, easements, property, and property rights necessary for such
purpose.

_(39) To do all things whatsoever necessary or expedient for pro-
moting or maintaining the general welfare, comfort, education, morals,
peace, government, health, trade, commerce or industries of the town;
or its inhabitants. .

(40) To prescribe any penalty for the violation of any town ordi-
nance, rule or regulation or of any provisions of this charter, not exceed-
ing five hundred dollars or twelve months imprisonment in jail or both.

(41) To pass and enforce all by-laws, rules, regulations and ordi-
nances not repugnant to the Constitution and laws of the State, which
it may deem necessary for the good order and government of the town,
the management of its property, the conduct of its affairs, the peace,
comfort, convenience, order, morals, health and protection of its citizens
or their property, and to do such other things and pass such other laws
as may be necessary or proper to carry into full effect and power, author-
ity, capacity, or jurisdiction, which is or shall be granted to or vested in
said town, or in the council, court or officers thereof, or which may be
necessarily incident to a municipal corporation.

The town of Salem may maintain a suit to restrain by injunction the
violation of any ordinance, notwithstanding punishment may be provided
for the violation of such ordinance.

§ 13. (a) Each proposed ordinance, or resolution, shall be intro-
duced in a written or printed form, and the enacting clause of all ordi-
nances passed by the council shall substantially be, “Be it ordained by the
council of the town of Salem, Virginia.”

(b) No ordinance, or resolution having the effect of an ordinance,
or resolution suspending an ordinance, unless it be an emergency measure,
shall be passed until it has been read at two meetings not less than ten
days apart, provided the requirement of a second reading by the affirma-
tive vote of * three members of the council may be confined to the reading
of the title only. Any ordinance or resolution read at one such meeting
may be amended and passed as amended at the next such meeting, pro-
vided that the amendment does not materially change the purpose and
character of the proposed ordinance. No ordinance shall be amended unless
such section or sections, as are intended to be amended, shall be reenacted.
The ayes and noes shall be taken and recorded upon the final passage of
all ordinances or resolutions and entered upon the journal of the pro-
CHS. 201, 202, 203] ACTS OF ASSEMBLY 211

ceedings of the council. Except as otherwise provided in this charter an
affirmative vote of a majority of the members elected to the council shall
be necessary to pass any ordinance or resolution. ;

§ 14. (a) No ordinance passed by the council shall take effect until
at least thirty days from the date of its passage except that the council
may, by the affirmative vote of * three of its members, pass emergency
measures to take effect at the time indicated therein. .

_ (b) An emergency measure is an ordinance for the immediate preser-
vation of the public peace, property, health or safety, or providing for
the immediate and necessary daily operation of a municipal department.
The fact that an emergency exists shall be stated in every such measure.
Ordinances appropriating money may be passed as emergency measures,
but no measure selling or conveying any rea] estate or making a grant,
renewal, extension of a franchise or other special privilege or regulating
the rate to be charged for its service by any public utility, shall ever be
80 passed.

2. An emergency exists and this act is in force from its passage.