AN ACT

ΤΟ

AMEND THE CHARTER

OF THE

CITY OF NEW-YORK.

PASSED APRIL 7, 1830.-CH. 122.

The People of the State of New-York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:

1. The legislative power of the Corporation of the City of New-York, shall be vested in a Board of Aldermen and a Board of Assistants, who together shall form the Common Council of the City.

2. Each Ward of the City shall be entitled to elect one person to be denominated the Alderman of the Ward, and the persons so chosen, together shall form the Board of Aldermen; and each Ward shall also be entitled to elect one person to be denominated an Assistant Alderman; and the persons so chosen, together shall form the Board of Assistants.

3. The Aldermen and Assistant Aldermen shall be chosen for one year; and no person shall be eligible to either office, who shall not, at the time of his election, be a resident of the Ward for which he is chosen.

4. The annual election for the Charter Officers shall commence on the second Tuesday in April, and the officers elected shall be sworn into office on the second Tuesday in May thereafter; and all the provisions of law now in force in regard to the notification, duration, and conduct of elections for Members of Assembly, and in regard to the appointment, powers, and duties of the inspec tors, holding the same, shall apply to the annual election of Charter Officers.

5. The first election for Charter Officers, after the passage of this law, shall take place on the second Tuesday in April, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-one; and all those persons who shall have been elected under the former laws regulating the election of Charter Officers, and shall be in office at the time of the passage of this law, shall continue in office until the officers elected under this law shall be entitled to be sworn into office.

6. The Board of Aldermen shall have power to direct a special election to be held, to supply the place of an Alderman whose seat shall become vacant by death, removal from the City, resignation, or otherwise; and the Board of Assistants shall also have power to direct a special election to supply any vacancy that may occur in the Board of Assistants; and in both cases, the person elected to supply the vacancy shall hold his seat only for the residue of the term of office of his immediate predecessor.

7. The Boards shall meet in separate chambers, and a majority of each shall be a quorum to do business. Each Board shall appoint a President from its own body, and shall also choose its Clerk and other officers, determine the rules of its own proceedings, and be the judge of the qualifications of its own members. Each Board shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and the doors of each shall be kept open, except when the public welfare shall require secrecy; and all resolutions and reports of Committees which shall recommend any specific improvement involving the appropriation of public moneys, or taxing or assessing the citizens of said city, shall be published immediately after the adjournment of the Board, under the authority of the Common Council, in all the newspapers employed by the Corporation; and whenever a vote is taken in relation thereto, the ayes and noes shall be called and published in the same

manner.

8. Each Board shall have the authority to compel the attendance of absent members; to punish its members for disorderly behavior, and to expel a member with the concurrence of two-thirds of the members elected to the Board; and the member so expelled, shall, by such expulsion, forfeit all his right and powers as an Alderman or Assistant Alderman.

9. The stated and occasional meetings of each Board of the Common Council, shall be regulated by its own ordinances; and both Boards may meet on the same or on different days, as they may severally judge expedient.

10. Any law, ordinance, or resolution of the Common Council may originate in either Board, and when it shall have passed one Board, may be rejected or amended by the other.

11. No member of either Board shall, during the period for which he was elected, be appointed to, or be competent to hold any office of which the emoluments are paid from the City treasury, or by fees, directed to be paid by any ordinance or act of the Common Council, or be directly or indirectly interested in any contract, the expenses or considerations whereof are to be paid under any ordinance of the Common Council; but this section shall not be construed to deprive any Alderman or Assistant of any emolument or fees which he is entitled to by virtue of his office.

12. Every act, ordinance or resolution, which shall have passed the two Boards of the Common Council, before it shall take effect shall be presented, duly certified, to the Mayor of the City, for his approbation. If he approve, he shall sign it; if not, he shall return it with his objections to the Board in which it originated, within ten days thereafter; or if such Board be not then in session, at its next stated meeting. The Board to which it shall be returned, shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and cause the same to be published in one or more of the public newspapers of the City.

13. The Board to which such act, ordinance, or resolution, has been so returned, shall, after the expiration of not less than ten days thereafter, proceed to reconsider the same. If, after such reconsideration, a majority of the members elected to the Board shall agree to pass the same, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other Board, by which it shall be likewise recon

sidered; and if approved by a majority of all the members elected to such Board, it shall take effect as an act or law of the Corporation. In all such cases the votes of both Boards shall be determined by ayes and noes, and the names of the persons voting for and against the passage of the measure reconsidered, shall be entered on the journal of each Board respectively.

14. If the Mayor shall not return any act, ordinance, or resolution so presented to him, within the time above limited for that purpose, it shall take effect in the same manner as if he had signed it.

15. Neither the Mayor nor Recorder of the City of New-York shall be a member of the Common Council thereof, after the second Tuesday of May, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-one.

16. Whenever there shall be a vacancy in the office of Mayor, and whenever the Mayor shall be absent from the City, or be prevented by sickness, or any other cause, from attending to the duties of his office, the President of the Board of Aldermen shall act as Mayor, and shall possess all the rights and powers of the Mayor, during the continuance of such vacancy, absence, or disability.

17. It shall be the duty of the Mayor

FIRST. To communicate to the Common Council, at least once a year, and oftener if he shall deem it expedient, a general statement of the situation and condition of the City, in relation to its government, finances, and improvements.

SECOND. To recommend to the adoption of the Common Council all such measures connected with the police, security, health, cleanliness, and ornament of the City, and the improvement of its government and finances, as he shall deem expedient.

THIRD. To be vigilant and active in causing the laws and ordinances of the government of the City to be duly executed and enforced.

FOURTH. To exercise a constant supervision and control over the conduct and acts of all subordinate officers, and to receive and examine into all such complaints as may be preferred against any of them for violation or neglect of duty, and generally to perform all such duties as may be prescribed to him by the Charter and City ordinances, and the laws of this State and the United States.

18. Annual and occasional appropriations shall be made by proper ordinances of the Common Council for every branch and object of City expendi ture, nor shall any money be drawn from the City Treasury except the same shall have been previously appropriated to the purposes or which it was drawn.

19. The Common Council shall not have authority to borrow any sums of money whatever on the credit of the Corporation, except in anticipation of the revenue of the year in which such loan shall be made, unless authorized by a special act of the Legislature.

20. It shall be the duty of the Common Council to publish, two months before the annual election of Charter Officers, in each year, for the general information of the citizens of New-York, a full and detailed statement of the receipts and expenditures of the Corporation during the year ending on the first day of the month in which such publication was made; and in every such statement the different sources of City revenue, and the amount received from each; the several appropriations made by the Common Council, the objects for which the same were made, and the amount of moneys expended under each; the moneys