The Vermont Statutes Online

Title 24 Appendix : Municipal Charters

Chapter 239 : Village of Manchester

• § 4. Village powers; specific authority

  The generality of the preceding section and the grant of powers therein made, but as a more specific designation of some of the powers conferred upon the Village, the Village of Manchester has authority:

  (1) To levy, assess, and collect taxes, in order to carry out its powers; to appropriate and to borrow money, within the limits prescribed by law; and to levy and collect special assessments for benefits conferred.

  (2) To purchase, hold, and convey real and personal property and to purchase, erect, and keep in repair buildings and other structures for Village purposes; to furnish all local public services; to purchase, hire, construct, own, maintain, and operate, or lease local public utilities, including aqueducts, reservoirs, a water supply system, and an electric light and power system; to acquire, by condemnation or otherwise, within or without the corporate limits, property necessary for any public utility and other Village purposes, subject to restrictions imposed by law.

  (3) To make local public improvements and to acquire, by condemnation or otherwise, property within its corporate limits necessary for the improvements; and also to acquire an excess over that needed for the improvements, and to sell or lease the excess property with restrictions, in order to protect and preserve the improvements.

  (4) To issue and sell bonds as permitted by the laws of this State without specific security therefor.

  (5) To purchase or lease lands within or without the corporate limits of the Village; to lay out, alter, and discontinue streets, highways, lanes, commons, alleys, and walks; to provide places of healthful recreation in summer or in winter such as a skating rink, a swimming pool, a playing field, and a public park; to provide for and maintain tourist camp sites, airports, aviation landing fields, a municipal forest reserve, and all other municipal undertakings and services authorized by law.

  (6) To adopt and enforce within its limits building, police, sanitary, zoning, Village planning, and other similar regulations and ordinances not in conflict with law.

  (7) Subject always to the Constitution and laws of this State and of the United States, and to the limitations of section 3 of this charter, to enact, adopt, repeal, alter, or amend ordinances, bylaws, and other regulations respecting the following matters within the Village limits:

  (A) The construction, establishment, use, operation, and licensing of markets dealing in food stuffs, slaughterhouses, restaurants, and other eating establishments; manufacturing establishments; advertising billboards, signs; lunch carts, bowling alleys, moving picture houses, public garages, hog pens, poultry houses, dog kennels, stables, gasoline filling stations, private drains, sewers, and public dumps.

  (B) The suppression of disorderly and public gambling houses, loafing, obscenity, disturbances, noises, vagrancy, and smoke nuisances.

  (C) The protection of buildings against fire by precautionary measures and inspection, the maintenance, replacement, and repair of stovepipes, furnaces, chimneys, electric wiring, and all other instrumentalities capable of causing damage by fire, and the erection and repair of buildings within fire limits as designated and prescribed by Village ordinances.

  (D) Vagrants, mendicants, peddlers, itinerant vendors, and transient business establishments.

  (E) The water supply for the protection of the Village against fire and for other purposes, and to regulate the use of the same.

  (F) The erection of poles and the placing of wires, cables, pipes, and electrical conduits, and the use of the same; the suspension, putting up, or removal of any sign or awning in or over any street, alley, highway, walk, park, common, or other public place, the clearing, repairing, and improvement of streets, alleys, highways, parks, commons, and other public places, and the use of the same; the planting, preservation, maintenance, and removal of shade and other trees; and the prohibiting and punishing of damage or injury to the same; the use of rockets, squibs, firecrackers, and all other fireworks in public places; preventing the practice of any amusement in any public place tending to injure or annoy any person therein or to endanger the security of property, coasting or skiing on all public places; the removal of snow, ice, garbage, refuse, and dirt from sidewalks and gutters by the owners or occupants of the premises upon which those sidewalks and gutters abut; and the cutting and removal of grass, thistles, or weeds, growing or being on those sidewalks and gutters by those owners and occupants. The regulation of pedestrian and vehicular traffic, parking, the erection and maintenance of guide posts, street signs, street safety devices; and the regulation of taxicabs, other vehicles, and animals used in the transportation or conveyance of persons or goods for hire. (Added 1943, No. 183, § 4.)