There shall be a Police Department and a Fire
Department. The City Manager shall be the administrative head of each.
The Council shall by ordinance designate the number of persons, with
their rank and salaries, to be appointed to serve in each said Department.
All appointed to serve in the Police Department shall be known as
police officers, and all appointed to serve in the Fire Department
as fire fighters.
Subject to the ordinances of the Council, the
City Manager shall make such rules and regulations for the management
of each department as he deems advisable or necessary.
Records of all proceedings, appointments, removals
and other activities shall be kept for each department.
Sworn officers of the Police Department shall
possess the powers, perform the duties and be subject to the liabilities
of police officers pursuant to the Criminal Procedure Law and any
other applicable laws of the State of New York.
The City Manager may arrange to police and to
preserve order in any park, cemetery or other property owned, possessed
or controlled by the City outside of the corporate limits of the City,
and any such officer may make arrest for any violation of law committed
in or near any such park, cemetery or other property.
The Chief of the Fire Department and any of
the members thereof acting under him or her or by his or her direction,
or that of the City Manager or Fire Marshal, or person performing
the duties corresponding to those of the Fire Marshal, shall have
the power in case of a fire or other emergency to enter any building
within said City for the purpose of examining the same to ascertain
the construction thereof, fire risk, exits, and other matters concerning
public safety and to extinguish any fire therein or in any adjoining
building. At any other time, they or any of them may do so with the
consent of the owner or occupant or pursuant to a warrant issued by
a court of competent jurisdiction.
The City Manager shall have the power to compel
the owner or lessee of any theater, hotel, place of amusement or place
where people congregate to make such changes by way of additional
means of exit, fire escapes, or both, as may be required by law or
state regulations and to provide and order that until such changes
shall be completed the same be closed to the public. Action may be
maintained in the name of the City to restrain, by injunction, any
violation of such order or regulation.
The City Manager, or Chief in charge of the
Fire Department at any fire, may order and direct the pulling down
or destruction of any buildings which may be deemed hazardous or likely
to communicate fire to any other building or buildings. No action
shall be maintained either against the City of Auburn or any person
therefor, but the owner or any person interested in any building so
pulled down or destroyed or in any personal property therein may,
within three months, but not thereafter, apply to the Council by petition
for relief or reimbursement therefor, stating the interest of the
petitioner in said building or the personal property therein destroyed,
with the particular description of the property destroyed and its
value.
The Council may agree with such petitioner as
to the amount of just compensation to be paid for any building or
personal property so destroyed, but in case the Council is unable
to agree with any petitioner as to the amount of just compensation,
then said petitioner or the Council may make application to the Supreme
Court to ascertain the just compensation to be paid to the said petitioner
or owner of said building or personal property therein destroyed in
the same manner and to the same court as is provided in Article 5
of the Eminent Domain Procedure Law.
Upon the entry of the judgment of the Supreme
Court, or upon an agreement with any petitioner for compensation,
the amount due the petitioner may be financed pursuant to the Local
Finance Law, and the Council may determine how such award, and any
interest to grow due thereon, and other expenses connected therewith,
shall be paid, whether the same shall be a general City charge or
a charge to be assessed entirely by the property benefited as a local
improvement, or in part a general City charge and in part a local
improvement charge, and, if in part a local improvement, it may direct
that the same be assessed and collected as such upon the property
benefited in the manner herein prescribed for local improvement assessments
or in any other manner it may deem just and equitable. If a general
City charge, it shall provide for the payment of the same by annual
installments thereof in the annual tax budget.