West Virginia Code § 8-12-5

General powers of every municipality and the governing body thereof
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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 bey 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,u 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 havte 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, ways, sidewalk or crosswalk, but before any
permission for any person to construct and maintain a passageway, building or other
structure overhanging or crossing any airspace is granted, a public hearing thereon shall be
held by the governing body after pugblication of a notice of the date, time, place and purpose
of the public hearing has been published as a Class I legal advertisement in compliance with
the provisions of article three,e chapter fifty-nine of this code and the publication area for the
publication shall be the municipality: Provided, That any permit so granted shall
automatically cease andL 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
the municipality for i ts 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
conWditions 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 waaterways and adjacent property;
(10) To prohibit the accumulation and require the dlisposal 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 certificateid 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 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 make regulations guarding against danger or damage by fire;
(15) To arrest, convict and punish any individual for carrying about his or her 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: Provided,
That with respect to any firearm a municipality may only arrest, convict and punish someone
if they are in violation of a state law proscribing certain conduct with a firearm;
(16) To arrest, convict and punish any person for importing, printing, publishing, selling or
distributing any pornographic publications;
(17) 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 her or under his or
her 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;
(18) To prevent and suppress conduct and practices which are immoral, diseorderly, lewd,
obscene and indecent;
(19) To prevent the illegal sale of intoxicating liquors, drinks, mixtures and preparations;
(20) 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;
(21) To arrest, convict and punish any person for gamabling 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 tablel be played with cards, dice or otherwise,
or any person who shall be a partner or concesrned in interest, in keeping or exhibiting the
table or bank, or keeping or maintaining any gaming house or place, or betting or gambling
for money or anything of value; i
(22) 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;
(23) 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 ta bles notwithstanding the general law as to state licenses for any such
business and Vthe provisions of section four, article thirteen of this chapter; and when the
municipality, in the exercise of its discretion, refuses to grant a license to operate a pool or
billiard room, mandamus may not lie to compel the municipality to grant the license unless it
shall clearly appear that the refusal of the municipality to grant a license is discriminatory or
arbitrary; and in the event that the municipality determines to license any business, the
municipality has 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 the
businesses;
(24) To protect places of divine worship and to preserve peace and order in and about the
premises where held;
(25) 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;
(26) To arrest, convict and punish any person for cruelly, unnecessarily or needlessly
beating, torturing, mutilating, killing, or overloading or overdriving or willfully depriving of
necessary sustenance any domestic animal;
(27) 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;
(28) 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;
(29) To prohibit with or without zoning the location of occupied house trailers or mobile
homes in certain residential areas;
(30) To regulate the location and placing of signs, billaboards, posters and similar
advertising;
(31) 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 foregoinig (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 articles nineteen and twenty),
within or without the corporate limits of the municipality, except that the municipality may
not erect any 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 the
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 has 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 the system or the pollution of the
water thereof and its maintenance in a healthful condition for public use within the
corWporate limits of the municipality;
(32) 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 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;
(33) To establish, construct, acquire, maintain and operate and regulate markets and
prescribe the time of holding the same;
(34) To regulate and provide for the weighing of articles sold or for sale;
(35) 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;
(36) 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;
(37) To establish, construct, acquire, maintain and operate a public library or museum or
both for public use;
(38) 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;
(39) To establish and maintain a public health unit in accordancue 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 Bureau for Public Health;
(40) To establish, construct, acquire, maintain and operate hospitals, sanitarians and
dispensaries; l
(41) To acquire, by purchase, condemnation or otherwise, land within or near the corporate
limits of the municipality for providing andi maintaining proper places for the burial of the
dead and to maintain and operate the same and regulate interments therein upon terms and
conditions as to price and otherwise as may be determined by the governing body and, in
order to carry into effect the authority, the governing body may acquire any cemetery or
cemeteries already established;
(42) 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;
(43) To proteVct and promote the public morals, safety, health, welfare and good order;
(44) To adopt rules for the transaction of business and the government and regulation of its
governing body;
(45) Except as otherwise provided, to require and take bonds from any officers, when
considered necessary, payable to the municipality, in its corporate name, with such sureties
and in a penalty as the governing body may see fit, conditioned upon the faithful discharge
of their duties;
(46) To require and take from the employees and contractors such bonds in a penalty, with
such sureties and with such conditions, as the governing body may see fit;
(47) To investigate and inquire into all matters of concern to the municipality or its
inhabitants;
(48) 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 consider
necessary or appropriate for the public interest;
(49) 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 the
classes thereof as may be considered advisable;
(50) To require owners, residents or occupants of factory-built homes situated in a factory-
built rental home community with at least ten factory-built homes, to visibly post the specific
numeric portion of the address of each factory-built home on the immediate premises of the
factory-built home of sufficient size to be visible from the adjoiniung street: Provided, That in
the event no numeric or other specific designation of an address exists for a factory-built
home subject to the authorization granted by this subdivisiotn, the municipality has the
authority to provide a numeric or other specific designation of an address for the factory-
built home and require that it be posted in accordance with the authority otherwise granted
by this section.
(51) To appropriate and expend not exceedinsg twenty-five cents per capita per annum for
advertising the municipality and the entertainment of visitors;
(52) To conduct programs to improvge 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 the applicants in traveling to and
from the municipality to be interviewed;
(54) To provide reve nue for the municipality and appropriate the same to its expenses;
(55) To create and maintain an employee benefits fund which may not exceed one tenth of
one percent of the annual payroll budget for general employee benefits and which is set up
for the purpose of stimulating and encouraging employees to develop and implement cost-
saving ideas and programs and to expend moneys from the fund for these 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 these
purposes;
(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
may not exceed any penalties provided in this chapter and chapter sixty-one of this code for
like offenses and violations;
(58) To participate in a purchasing card program for local governments authorized and
administered by the State Auditor as an alternative payment method; and
(59) To enter into agreements with one or more other municipalities, and with county
commissions to combine and share selected governmental services by combining operations,
equipment, and employees into a unified government service.

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