CHAPTER 581

An Act to amend and reenact § 4, as amended, of Chapter 809 of the Acts
of Assembly of 1920, approved March 19, 1920, which provided a
anareet for the city of Bristol, the section relating to the powers of the
city.

i -» ee oe ae ee
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

1. That § 4, as amended, of Chapter 309 of the Acts of Assembly of
1920, approved March 19, 1920, be amended and reenacted as follows:

§ 4. In addition to the powers mentioned in section two hereof, the
said city of Bristol shall have the following powers:

(1) To raise annually by taxes and asessments in said city such sums
of money as the council thereof shall deem necessary for the purposes of
said city, and in such manner as said council shall deem expedient, in
accordance with the Constitution and general law of this State and of the
United States; provided, however, that it shall impose no tax on the bonds
of said city.

(2) To impose special or local assessments for local improvements
and enforce payment thereof, subject, however, to such limitations pre-
scribed by the Constitution of Virginia as may be in force at the time of
the imposition of such special or local assessments.

(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.

(4) To expend the money of the city 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 with-
out the city or State and for any of the purposes of the city; 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 city.

(6) To acquire, in any lawful manner, for the purpose of encouraging
commerce, manufacture, education, and the building of homes, lands within
and without the city, 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, education, or
residential uses and purposes, including any land now owned by the city,
and including the power to donate any land now or hereafter owned by
the city for hospital purposes.

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

(8) Construct, maintain, regulate and operate public improvements of
all kinds, including municipal and other buildings, armories, comfort sta-
tions, markets, and all buildings and structures necessary or appropriate
for the use and proper operation of the various departments of the city:
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 acquire in any lawful manner in any county of the State or
without the State, such water, lands, property rights and riparian rights
as the council of said city may deem necessary for the purpose of pro-
viding an adequate water supply for said city and of piping or conducting
the same; to lay all necessary mains; 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 water shed tributary to any such water supply
wherever such lands may be located in this State; to impose and enforce
adequate penalties 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 purpose 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 city for such pur-
pose shall not exceed, in the aggregate, thirty thousand acres, at any
one time. For any of the purposes aforesaid said city 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 prescribed in the ordinance provided for such condemnation or purchase.

(10) To merge its water supplies, waterworks and water properties,
in whole or in part, either with or without its distribution system, with
that of the city of Bristol, Tennessee, including any corporation owned or
controlled by the city of Bristol, Tennessee, under joint ownership, con-
trol and operation, either incorporated or unincorporated, as may, by the
city council, be determined best, and to join with the city of Bristol,
Tennessee, in acquiring and developing additional water supplies in the
States of Virginia or Tennessee, or both. Such joint ownership, control and
operation of such water systems, in so far as the city of Bristol, Virginia,
is concerned may be effectuated and managed either directly by the council
of the city or by such of its councilmen, officers, or citizens or by such other
persons as may be authorized to do so by ordinance and election by the
council.

(11) To join with the city of Bristol, Tennessee, or the Bristol-Good-
son Water Company (a Virginia corporation owned by the city of Bristol,
Tennessee), separately or jointly, in acquiring, developing, maintaining,
and operating, leasing, or otherwise handling any water power properties,
pipe lines, reservoirs, pumping stations, filtering plants, purification pro-
cesses, and other works, and auxiliary steam plants, in the States of Vir-
ginia and Tennessee, or in either of said States, for the purpose of supply-
ing water and electric current, or either, for the use of the inhabitants of
the cities of Bristol, Virginia and Tennessee, and vicinity; and to that
end the city of Bristol, Virginia, is authorized to make the city of Bristol,
Tennessee, its trustee or agent to hold title to property in Tennessee, or
for any other purpose the city of Bristol, Virginia may deem proper; and
the City of Bristol, Virginia, is authorized to act as trustee or agent for the
purpose of holding title to property in Virginia for the city of Bristol,
Tennessee, or for any other purpose the city of Bristol, Tennessee, may de-
sire and the city of Bristol, Virginia, may deem proper.

(12) To establish, impose and enforce water rates and rates and
charges for public utilities, or other service, products, or conveniences,
operated, rendered or furnished by the city; and to assess, or cause to be
assessed water rents 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 rents
or charges are assessed.

(13) 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 main-
tain parks, playgrounds, and other public grounds; to construct, main-
tain 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 highways,
abolish and prevent grade crossings over the same by railroads in the
manner prescribed by general law for the elimination of grade crossings ;
to require any railroad company operating a railroad at the place where
any highway or street is crossed within the city limits to erect and main-
tain at such crossing 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 operation, 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
city; to regulate the services to be rendered, including routes traversed,
and rates charged by buses, motor cars, cabs and other vehicles 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 such streets may
be affected by the construction, operation, repair or maintenance of such
railroads or street car 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 electric, 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 license charge for such privi-
leges, 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 location or move the same; to require
all telephone and telegraph wires and all wires and cables carrying elec-
tricity, 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 city, and any such new or
existing street or streets may cross any such track or tracks, yard or yards,
of any railroads in the city, 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 shall 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 city, and in the event the city 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 con-
structing such crossing, then the city shall submit such plans and speci-
fications to the State Corporation Commission, and the State Corporation
Commission, after reasonable notice to such railroad company and after
hearing such evidence as either part may adduce shall approve, or revise
and approve, the plans for such crossing as the council shall have deter-
mined shall be made, or substitute such other plans or character of cross-
ing, whether at grade, overhead or underpass, as the State Corporation
Commission may deem proper under all the facts, circumstances and con-
ditions in the case, and the State Corporation Commission shall determine
what part of the cost of constructing such crossing shall fairly and reason-
ably be paid by the city, if any, and what part by the railroad company *
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.

(1314) 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 thereof, either within or without this State,
and acquire and install machinery and equipment, and build the necessary
roads or tramroads thereto, and operate the same for the purpose of pro-
ducing materials required for the construction, repair and maintenance of
streets, highways, sidewalks, water works, reservoirs, sewers, public build-
ings, and any and all public improvements, and to sell any surplus of such
materials for 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, and build and operate a plant or plants
for the preparation and mixing of materials for the construction of im-
proved streets and other public improvements, and the maintenance and
repair nereot, and to build and operate coal tipples and yards in connection

erewith.

(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 city, in order to facilitate
public travel to and from said city and its suburbs, and to and from said
city and any property owned by said city and situated beyond the corpor-
ate 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 there-
with and to establish, construct, maintain and operate sewage disposal
plants, and to acquire by condemnation or otherwise, within or without
the city, 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

e.

(16) In connection with its system of sewerage, the city may con-
tinue to use Beaver Creek and Little Creek as sewers, and to this end the
council may at any time order the channel of said Beaver Creek or Little
Creek to be so altered, widened, deepened, straightened, improved, or the
location thereof changed, as it may think proper, and such wall or walls
to be constructed along its banks as will tend to prevent overflow; and said
city of Bristol is hereby authorized and empowered to condemn, in the
manner provided by law, any land, or interest in land, or any riparian
rights, or any property rights, necessary for the purpose of so altering,
widening, deepening, straightening, improving or changing the location of
the channel of said Beaver Creek or Little Creek within the said city of

ristol.

The city of Bristol is further authorized and empowered to change
the location of the channel of any other creek or creeks within the city and
to acquire by condemnation or otherwise any land, or interest in land, or
any riparian rights, or any property rights within the city, necessary for
such purpose.

(17) To join with the city of Bristol, Tennessee, in the construction,
maintenance, use and operation of a sanitary sewer line or lines and sewer-
age disposal plant, either within the State of Virginia or Tennessee, or
both, and to acquire by condemnation or otherwise, any lands, interest in
lands, properties, property rights and riparian rights necessary thereto.

(18) Subject to the provisions of the Constitution of Virginia and of
this charter to grant franchises for public utilities.
(19) To collect and dispose of sewage, offal, ashes, garbage, carcasses
of dead animals, and other refuse, 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.

(20) To compel the abatement and removal of all nuisances within
the city or upon property owned by the city 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 city to be kept clean and sanitary
and free from stagnant water, weeds, filth and unsightly deposits, 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 offensive business within
said city, the keeping of hogs or other animals, poultry or other fowl
therein, or the exercise of any dangerous or unwholesome business, trade
or employment therein; to regulate the transportation of all articles
through the streets of the city; to compel the abatement of smoke and
dust, and prevent unnecessary noise; to regulate 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 billboards, and
generally to define, prohibit, abate, suppress and prevent all things detri-
mental to the health, morals, aesthetics, safety, convenience and welfare of
the inhabitants of the city.

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

(22) To provide by ordinance for a system of meat inspection, and
appoint meat inspectors, agents or officers to carry the same into effect,
license, regulate, control and locate slaughter houses within or without
the corporate limits of the city. The city may acquire by lease or purchase
and may hold property for use as a slaughter house, either within or with-
out the corporate limits of the city; and may grant an exclusive franchise
to any person or corporation to conduct a slaughter house within the city
for a reasonable length of time, not to exceed thirty years, subject to the
regulations and on the conditions prescribed by the council, and in com-
pliance with the general laws of the State as to the granting and selling
of franchises and public property by cities and towns.

(22) To extinguish and prevent fires and to compel citizens to render
assistance to the fire department in case of need, and to establish, regulate
and control a fire department or division; to regulate the size, height,
materials and construction of buildings, fences, walls, retaining walls and
other structures hereafter erected in such manner as the public safety and
convenience may require; to remove or require to be removed or recon-
structed 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 that 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 efficient
laws for securing the safety of persons from fires in halls and buildings
used for public assemblies, entertainments or amusements.

(23) To charge and to collect fees for permits to use public facilities
and for public service and privileges.
CH. 581} ACTS OF ASSEMBLY 743

(24) 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; to own, operate and appropriate money for the support of a public
library, separately or jointly with the city of Bristol, Tennessee; to so own
and lease lands and buildings therefor, either in said city or in Bristol,
Tennessee.

(27) To provide and maintain, either within or without the city,
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
city from coming to said city from without the same; and for this purpose
to require the owner of any conveyance bringing such person to the city
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 city within one year from the date of his arrival; and also to
expel therefrom any such person who has been in said city less than ninety
days; also to expel from the city all persons found therein dangerous to
the peace, safety and welfare of the city or any person who may be advocat-
ing 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, governmental, industrial, educational or moral
welfare of the people.

(29) To provide for the preservation of the general health of the in-
habitants of said city, make regulations to secure the same, inspect all
foods and foodstuffs and prevent the introduction and sale in said city of
any articles or thing intended for human consumption, which is adult-
erated, impure or otherwise dangerous to health, and to condemn, seize and
destroy or otherwise dispose of any such article or thing without liability
to the owner thereof; prevent the introduction or spread of contagious or
infectious diseases, and prevent and suppress disease generally; to pro-
vide and regulate hospitals within or without the city limits, and if neces-
sary to the suppression of disease, 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 main-
tenance of a hospital or hospitals for the use of the people of the city; to
provide for the organization of a department or bureau of health, to have
the powers of a board of health, for said city, with the authority necessary
for the prompt and efficient performance 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 city have; to establish quarantine
ground within or without the city 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; to provide and keep
records of vital statistics and compile the returns of all births, deaths and
other information necessary thereto.

(30) To acquire by purchase, gift, devise, condemnation or other-
wise, lands, either within or without the city, 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,
absolutely or in trust, gifts, grants, bequests and devises of any kind of
property, real or personal for educational, charitable or other public
purposes; and to do all the things and acts necessary to carry out the pur-
poses of such gifts, grants, bequests and devises, with power to manage,
maintain, operate, sell, lease or otherwise handle or dispose of the same, in
phe pens with the terms and conditions of such gifts, grants, bequests
and devises.

(32) 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 city 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 city 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 city 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
whore 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.

(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
suppress houses of ill-fame and gambling houses; to prevent and punish
lewd, indecent and disorderly exhibitions in said city, and to expel there-
from 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 city.

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

(37) The city is authorzied to exempt, by four-fifths vote of the
members of the council, from city taxes only such properties and for such
length of time as may be authorized or permitted by the Constitution and
general laws of the State.

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

(39) To provide for the development of power and light and the
distribution and sale of same, and to construct, own, maintain and operate
facilities necessary thereto, and to acquire by condemnation or otherwise,
within or without the city, land, interest in land, water power sites, ease-
ments, property, and property rights necessary for such purpose.

(40) To do all things whatsoever necessary or expedient for promoting
or maintaining the general welfare, comfort, education, morals, peace,
government, health, trade, commerce or industries of ‘the city or its
inhabitants.

(41) To prescribe any penalty for the violation of any city ordinance,
rule or regulation or of any provisions of this charter, not exceeding five
hundred dollars or twelve months imprisonment in jail, or both.

(42) To join with the city of Bristol, Tennessee, in the construction,
maintenance, cleaning and sanitation of State street, or any other street
on the State line, and in the regulation and routing of traffic along and
over the same; to join with the city of Bristol, Tennessee, in the establish-
ing and regulating jitney, motor vehicles and other public service passenger
routes, and in fixing and regulating the charges for such passenger carry-
ing service; to authorize the appointment and qualification of police officers
of the city of Bristol, Tennessee, as police officers in the city of Bristol,
Virginia, and to permit and authorize the appointment of police officers
of the city of Bristol, Virginia, as police officers in the city of Bristol,
Tennessee; to join with the city of Bristol, Tennessee, in any plan, arrange-
ment or contract to promote or maintain the general welfare, comfort,
education, morals, peace, government, health, trade, commerce or in-
dustries of the city of Bristol, Virginia, or its inhabitants, or to secure
additional water for the city of Bristol, Virginia, and its inhabitants, but
this grant of power or the exercise thereof shall in no event defeat, limit
or abridge the right of the city of Bristol, Virginia, to exercise the power
of eminent domain as set out in § 4, subsections (9) and (11) of this
charter.

(43) 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 city, 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 any power, authority, capacity,
or jurisdiction, which is or shall be granted to or vested in said city or in
the council, court or officers thereof, or which may be necessarily incident
to a municipal corporation.

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

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