No written contract providing for the payment of $250 or more
entered into by the City or any of its officers, boards or departments
shall be acted under until there shall be endorsed thereon by the
Corporation Counsel a certificate to the effect that the City Officer,
board or department which has executed the same on behalf of the City
had authority and power to amend such contract and that such contract
is in proper form and properly executed; and he/she shall attend to
all the law business of the City and discharge such other duties as
may be prescribed in the ordinances of the Common Council.
The Corporation Counsel shall pay over at once to the City Treasurer
all moneys collected by him/her for or on behalf of the City, including
fines and penalties, and he/she shall annually, on the first Tuesday
of February, file with the Mayor of the City an inventory of all the
books and property belonging to the City in his/her custody. He/She
shall keep a docket, in which shall be entered at length all actions
and proceedings in which he/she shall appear for the City, and which
docket shall show at all times the condition of all such actions or
legal proceedings.
The amount of any judgment recovered against the City and payable
by it, remaining unpaid, with the interest due thereon, in case no
appeal is intended to be taken or in case such judgment is finally
affirmed on an appeal taken, shall be reported by the Corporation
Counsel to the Common Council immediately after the same shall have
become payable; and, unless execution upon such judgment shall be
stayed, such amount shall be included in the next City tax budget
and raised in the next levy of taxes for the expenses of the City
or raised by the issuance of obligations pursuant to the Local Finance
Law in the fiscal year in which said judgment shall become payable
or in the fiscal year immediately next following. Until the money
so raised shall be paid into the treasury and payment of judgment
refused, no execution shall be issued against the City unless the
amount of such judgment shall not have been included in the tax levy
or provided for by the issuance of obligations as aforesaid, provided,
nevertheless, that if there are any moneys in the treasury to the
credit of a fund derived from the revenues of the City other than
taxation not otherwise appropriated sufficient to satisfy judgments,
the Common Council shall direct the payment therefrom of such judgments
in the order of their recovery.
It shall be the duty of every member of the police force of
the City, observing or having any knowledge of any accident from which
a cause of action might arise against the City, to forthwith report
the facts of such accident to the Corporation Counsel; and upon the
request of the Corporation Counsel, the Chief of Police shall detail
some member of the force to aid the Corporation Counsel in the investigation
of claims against the City for injuries to person or property.