All the inhabitants dwelling within the territorial
limits of the Town of Manchester, as heretofore constituted, shall
continue to be a body politic and corporate under the name of "Town
of Manchester," hereinafter in this Charter called "the Town," and,
as such, shall have perpetual succession and may hold and exercise
all powers and privileges heretofore exercised by said Town and not
inconsistent with the provisions of this Charter, the additional powers
and privileges herein conferred and all powers and privileges conferred
upon Towns under the General Laws of the State of Connecticut.
[Amended by referendum 11-8-2022]
All property, both real and personal, all rights
and action and rights of every description and all securities and
liens vested or inchoate in said Town as of the date when this Charter
shall take effect are continued in said Town, and said Town shall
continue to be liable for all debts and obligations of every kind
for which said Town shall be liable on said date, whether accrued
or not. Nothing herein shall be construed to affect the right of said
Town to collect any assessment, charge, debt or lien. If any contract
has been entered into by said Town prior to the effective date of
this Charter or any bond or undertaking has been given by or in favor
of said Town which contains provision that the same may be enforced
by any officer, board, commission, bureau or department therein named,
which is hereby abolished, such contracts, bonds or undertakings shall
be in no manner impaired but shall continue in full force and effect
and the powers conferred and the duties imposed with reference to
the same upon any such officer, board, commission, bureau or department
shall, except as otherwise provided in this Charter, thereafter be
exercised and discharged by the Town Manager.
The Town shall have the following specific powers
in addition to all powers granted to Towns under the Constitution
and General Statutes, such powers to be exercised by the Town through
the enactment and enforcement of ordinances, bylaws or otherwise:
(1) To contract and to be contracted with, to sue and
be sued, and to institute, prosecute, maintain and defend any action
or proceeding in any court of competent jurisdiction;
(2) To make, have and use and, from time to time, to alter
a common seal;
(3) To take, purchase, hold, condemn, lease, sell and
convey such real and personal property as the purposes of the Town
may require;
(4) To provide for the authentication, execution and delivery
of deeds, grants and releases of Town property and evidences of debt
issued by said Town;
(5) To take by gift, grant, bequest and devise and hold
real and personal estate absolutely or in trust for any public use
including that of education, art, ornament, health, charity or amusement,
for cemeteries, parks or gardens, or for the erection or maintenance
of statues, monuments, buildings or structures, upon such terms or
conditions as may be prescribed by the grantor or donor and accepted
by said Town and to provide for the proper administration of the same;
(6) To prescribe the salaries and compensation of all
officers of said Town and the duties of such officers not expressly
defined by law;
(7) To manage, regulate and control the finances and property,
real and personal, of the Town and to regulate and provide for the
sale, conveyance, transfer and release of Town property and to provide
for the due execution of contracts and evidences of indebtedness issued
by the Town;
(8) To provide for the auditing, examination and investigation
of the accounts and records of the Town maintained by any of its departments,
commissions, boards, bureaus or officers;
(9) To make and enforce police, sanitary and other similar
regulations and to protect or promote the peace, safety, good government
and welfare of the Town and its inhabitants;
(10) To provide for the policing of the Town and to regulate
and prescribe the duties of the police force in respect to criminal
matters within the limits of the Town and to maintain and regulate
a suitable place of detention within the Town limits for the safekeeping
of all persons arrested and awaiting trial;
(11) To provide, organize, maintain and regulate a fire
department, provide the necessary apparatus for extinguishing fires
and do all other things necessary or desirable to protect the Town
from fire, and to establish fire limits within said Town;
(12) To preserve the public peace and good order, to prevent
and quell riots and disorderly assemblages and to prevent disturbing
noises;
(13) To permit, regulate and prohibit games, coasting,
sliding and the use of velocipedes, bicycles and tricycles on the
streets or sidewalks of the Town;
(14) To license, regulate and prohibit the keeping, storing,
manufacturing, selling or use of any explosive or inflammable substances
or materials, including firecrackers and fireworks, within the Town,
or their conveyance into or through the Town;
(15) To regulate the speed of vehicles, subject to the
provisions of the General Statutes relating to the regulation of the
speed of motor vehicles and of animals, and the driving or leading
of animals through the streets;
(16) To secure the safety of persons passing through or
in the Town by regulations of fireworks, shows, parades, processions
and music;
(17) To define, prohibit and abate within the Town all
nuisances and causes thereof and all things detrimental to the health,
morals, safety, convenience and welfare of its inhabitants and to
cause the abatement of any nuisance at the expense of the owner or
owners of the premises on which such nuisance exists;
(18) To prevent vice, suppress gambling houses, houses
of ill fame and disorderly houses and to punish for gambling and policy
playing;
(19) To regulate and prohibit swimming or bathing in public
or exposed places within said Town;
(20) To provide for the health of said Town and to do all
things necessary or desirable to secure and promote the public health;
(21) To regulate and prohibit the erection or use and require
the removal of sinks, cesspools, drains, sewers, privies, barns, outhouses
and poultry pens and houses;
(22) To regulate the removing of any offensive manure or
other substance, night soil or dead animals through the streets of
the Town and to provide for the disposal of the same;
(23) To preserve and care for public burial grounds and
regulate the burial or disposal of the dead;
(24) To regulate and prohibit the carrying on within said
Town of any trade, manufacture, business or profession which is or
may be so carried on as to become prejudicial to public health, conducive
to fraud and cheating or dangerous to or constituting an unreasonable
annoyance to those living or owning property in the vicinity;
(25) To regulate the emission of smoke from any chimney,
smokestack or other source within the limits of the Town, and provide
for the proper heating of buildings within the Town;
(26) To license milk dealers and regulate the sale and
manner of distribution of milk and beverages composed wholly or in
part of milk, and to prohibit the sale thereof unless in accordance
with such regulations;
(27) To regulate and control the sale and distribution
of all foodstuffs of every description;
(28) To provide for such inspection service within and
without the Town and to make such regulations as may be necessary
to the purity and wholesomeness of food products sold within the Town;
(29) To regulate weights and measures in accordance with
the lawful standards thereof and provide proper inspection thereof;
(30) To regulate the measuring, inspecting and manner of
selling of wood, coke, coal, oils and other fuels, and the sale of
goods by public auction in the Town;
(31) To regulate the construction, reconstruction, demolition,
removal, altering or repairing of buildings of any kind and materials
used in, and the location, height, maintenance, use and occupancy
of, buildings, and generally to regulate all building operations within
said Town, and to regulate plumbing and the installation of heating
apparatus, electrical wiring and all other construction work in any
building in said Town;
(32) To regulate and prohibit the moving of buildings upon
or through the streets or other public places of the Town, and to
cause the removal and demolition of unsafe buildings or structures;
(33) To regulate the mode of using any buildings when such
regulations seem expedient for the purpose of promoting the safety,
health, morals and general welfare of the inhabitants of said Town;
(34) To establish lines beyond which no building, steps,
stoop, veranda, billboard, advertising sign or device or other structure
or obstruction may be erected;
(35) To regulate and prohibit the placing, erecting or
keeping of signs, awnings or other thing upon or over the sidewalks,
streets and other public places of the Town;
(36) To prohibit and regulate the discharge of drains from
roofs of buildings over or upon the sidewalks, streets or other public
places of the Town or into sanitary sewers;
(37) To lay out, construct, maintain, operate, alter, extend
and discontinue sewer and drainage systems and sewage disposal plants;
(38) To enter into or upon any land for the purpose of
making necessary surveys or mapping in connection with any public
improvement and to take by eminent domain any lands, rights, easements,
privileges, franchises or structures which may be necessary for the
purpose of establishing, constructing or maintaining any public work,
either within or without the Town limits, or for any municipal purpose
in the manner prescribed by § 48-12 of the General Statutes,
as amended;
(39) To prescribe the form of proceedings and mode of assessing
benefits and appraising damages in taking lands for public use, or
in making public improvements to be paid for in whole or in part by
special assessments, and to prescribe the time when and the manner
in which all benefits assessed shall be collected, when not specially
prescribed in this Act;
(40) To regulate and prohibit the excavation, altering,
use or opening of streets, sidewalks, highways, public places and
grounds for public and private purposes and the location of any work
or thing therein, whether temporary or permanent, upon or under the
surface thereof;
(41) To regulate the laying, location and maintenance of
gas pipes, water pipes, drains, sewers, poles, wires, conduits and
other structures in the streets and public places of the Town;
(42) To create, provide for, construct, regulate and maintain
all things in the nature of public works and improvements;
(43) To prevent trespassing on public and private lands
and in buildings in said Town;
(44) To keep the streets, sidewalks and public places free
from undue noises and nuisances and prohibit loitering thereon;
(45) To provide for lighting the streets, highways, and
other public places of the Town and for the care and preservation
of public lamps and lampposts and fixtures;
(46) To keep open and safe for public use and travel and
free from encroachment or obstruction the streets, sidewalks, public
grounds and places in said Town;
(47) To regulate and prohibit the operation of commercial
motor vehicles of more than two (2) tons lightweight on residential
highways;
(48) To provide for the planting, rearing and preserving
of shade and ornamental trees on the streets and public grounds;
(49) To require owners or occupants of land adjacent to
any sidewalk or public walk to remove snow, ice, sleet, debris or
any other obstruction therefrom, to provide penalties upon their failure
to do so and to cause such snow, ice, sleet, debris or other obstruction
to be removed and to make the cost of such removal a lien on such
property;
(50) To provide public entertainments and amusements for
the people of the Town;
(51) To prohibit, restrain, license and regulate all sports,
exhibitions, public amusements and performances and all places where
games may be played, including places for pool, billiards and bowling,
and the business of peddlers, auctioneers and junk dealers;
(52) To regulate and protect from injury or defacement
all public buildings, public monuments, trees and ornaments in public
places and other public property in the Town;
(53) To regulate and prohibit the going at large of dogs
and other animals in the streets and public places of the Town and
to prevent cruelty to animals and all inhuman sports;
(54) To regulate and prohibit the keeping of swine, cattle,
poultry and other animals within the Town limits or portions thereof;
(55) To lay out, establish, construct, maintain, manage
and operate cemeteries, public buildings, parks, playgrounds, libraries,
reading rooms and public places;
(56) To provide for and regulate the collection and disposal
of all garbage, trash, waste and ashes, either by contract or otherwise,
and prohibit and regulate the depositing of the same within the Town;
(57) To make all lawful regulations, ordinances, bylaws,
and orders in furtherance of any of said powers and to prescribe penalties
and forfeitures for the violation. of the same;
(58) To lay and collect taxes to meet the lawful expenses
of the Town;
(59) By ordinance, to make such rules and regulations concerning
the preparation and filing of tax lists as it may deem proper, the
provisions of the statutes to the contrary notwithstanding, provided
such ordinance shall have reference only to the form and filing of
tax lists by the Assessor or by property owners or to the exclusion
of all or certain items of taxable property from the addition of the
penalty of ten (10) percent provided by law for failure to file tax
lists; and provided no such ordinance shall be valid or effective
until approved by the State of Connecticut, Office of Policy and Management.