4.6. General powers, duties, and responsibilities of the Selectboard
The Selectboard shall have the general oversight of the affairs and property of the Town not committed by law to the care of any particular officer, including the following powers, duties, and responsibilities:
(1) To establish and maintain a police department, including quarters, vehicles, and equipment, and to provide for the appointment of police officers.
(2) To establish and maintain a fire department, including quarters, vehicles, and equipment, and to provide for the appointment of fire fighting officers.
(3) To establish and maintain a rescue service, including quarters, vehicles, and equipment, and to provide for an ambulance service and the appointed emergency medical technicians.
(4) To establish health services as provided in 24 V.S.A. chapter 69.
(5) To provide for the construction and maintenance of roads, sidewalks, and bridges under Town control, and to lay out, construct, erect, maintain, and repair additional roads, sidewalks, and bridges for the safety and convenience of the people as deemed appropriate.
(6) To provide for the maintenance and repair of water, sewer, and storm water drainage systems, including a system for the supply of water to the people by wells, reservoirs, pipelines, and otherwise, and to provide for treatment of water, sewage, and storm drainage for the health, safety, and welfare of the people as deemed appropriate (as provided in 1943 Acts and Resolves No. 180, as amended by 1975 Acts and Resolves No. 123).
(7) To provide for the lighting of roads, sidewalks, bridges, parks, parking lots, and other public places for the safety and convenience of the people as deemed appropriate.
(8) To purchase and distribute electricity or gas or to acquire, establish, and maintain an electric light and power system and a gas system or other energy system for the welfare and convenience of the people and for use by the Town as circumstances may require.
(9) To establish other departments of government for the orderly and convenient administration of Town affairs.
(10) To lease and maintain real and personal property owned by the Town.
(11) To provide for the collection, storage, and disposal of garbage and other refuse, including building demolition materials, toxic or chemical wastes, and other commercial or industrial waste materials as consistent with 10 V.S.A. § 6607a.
(12) To provide and operate facilities for public recreation, including land, buildings, vehicles, and equipment.
(13) To accept or reject on behalf of the Town, grants or donations of property, both real and personal, from the federal government, or any agency or political subdivision thereof; from any state, or any agency or political subdivision thereof; from corporations, both public and private; and from individuals or partnerships, including payments in kind or in services, and to pay all necessary expenses in the acquisition thereof, including the making of loan guarantees or relocation payments and assistance. (Ref. subchapter 7, sections 7.1 and 7.2)
(14) To condemn lands or buildings to which public ownership is deemed necessary for the exercise of any of the powers of the Town or Selectboard, and to hold public hearings thereon for just compensation to be paid to the owners of any right or interest therein.
(15) To conduct such inquiries and investigations as may be deemed necessary to promote the health, safety, and welfare of the people.
(16) To act as a quasijudicial body in all appropriate cases and to provide for the orderly conduct of all public meetings or hearings.
(17) To provide for arbitration of disputes and for the conduct of legal affairs of the Town.
(18) To establish appropriate procedures for all purchases and sales, for the award of contracts, and for the borrowing of money when authorized by the legal voters or by law.
(19) To adopt personnel rules for Town employees in accordance with 24 V.S.A. § 1121.
(20) To provide for all other services that would otherwise be performed by an elected auditor, including the production of the annual Town Report.
(21) To provide for the regulation and licensing of such activities as it deems necessary to secure the general welfare, including theaters, restaurants and public places where food is sold, pool halls, bowling alleys and places for the operation of video games and other coin operated machines, laundries, dry cleaning establishments, arcades, clubs or other privately owned places where food or liquor is offered for sale, itinerant vendors, peddlers, transient merchants, pawn shops, bicycles, taxicabs, and taxidrivers.
(22) To establish traffic regulations governing the operation of motor vehicles, coasting with sleds or otherwise, bicycling, skateboarding, roller skating, or other uses of the public roads, parking lots, bridges, or sidewalks by pedestrians or otherwise.
(23) To regulate, restrain, or control the running at large of dogs and other domestic animals. In addition to the tax imposed by the laws of Vermont upon the owner or keeper of dogs, to impose and collect charges for the keeping, impoundment, or examination thereof, and to prescribe such penalties in default thereof as may be deemed necessary. All monies received hereunder shall be paid into the Town’s treasury and belong to said Town.
(24) To provide for the licensing and regulation of community antenna television systems and community cable television systems, including the right to lease and operate such systems, and to acquire, establish, and maintain such systems, for furnishing community antenna and cable television services for the welfare and convenience of the people and for use by the Town. The power and responsibility granted herein does not include the power to determine, proscribe, or censor program material distributed over such systems, whether publicly or privately owned. Any such system publicly owned or leased shall be operated under the supervision of an independent board of directors.
(25) To promote and safeguard the public health, safety, comfort, or general welfare by the adoption of ordinances and regulations relating to the following subjects:
(A) The design, construction, repair, alteration, removal, and demolition of buildings and structures of all kinds.
(B) The design, installation, repair, alterations, removal, and maintenance of plumbing systems, sanitary sewers, and drains.
(C) The installation, repair, alteration, use, and maintenance of electrical wiring, motors, devices, equipment and appliances, and appurtenances thereof.
(D) The handling, transportation, storage, and use or sale of explosives; radioactive materials or devices; and other hazardous chemicals, materials, substances, or devices and the use and occupancy of buildings, structures, land, and premises for such purposes.
(E) The installation, repair, and alteration of furnaces, stoves, fireplaces, and devices used for heating, cooking, or in any industrial process from which damage by fire may occur.
(F) The air conditioning and ventilation of buildings and structures.
(G) The lighting of buildings and other structures and open areas.
(H) The minimum dimensions of rooms used for habitation, based on the number of occupants thereof.
(I) The minimum requirements for sanitary facilities in buildings used for habitation or for dispensing food or food products.
(J) The fixing and determination of fire limits within the Town based on density of buildings and the prescription of standards for buildings and structures within each fire limit area with reference to the type of occupancy within a building.
(K) The adoption of a building code, electric code, plumbing code, fire prevention code, and housing code. A book, pamphlet, or other publication may be made a part of any ordinance, bylaw, or regulation by reference therein to such publication by its title, clearly identifying it. When a book, pamphlet, or other publication is so incorporated by reference, it need not be published in a newspaper; but copies shall at all times be available for public inspection in the office of the Town Clerk, who shall keep a reasonable supply in his or her office for sale, at cost to residents of the Town.
(L) Prescribing the powers and duties of building inspectors, inspectors of electric wiring, plumbing inspectors, fire prevention inspectors, and housing inspectors.
(M) Providing penalties for noncompliance with orders of any inspector named in subdivision (L) of this subdivision, made by virtue of any resolution, ordinance, bylaws, or regulation adopted by the Selectboard hereunder. However, provision shall be made to appeal such orders and decisions in the manner specified by 24 V.S.A. chapter 83.
(N) Expanding and enlarging, consistent with this section and the charter, the requirements, powers, duties, and other provisions of 24 V.S.A. chapter 83.
(O) Regulating and licensing electricians and electrical contractors, plumbers and plumbing contractors; handlers of explosives; radioactive materials and devices; and other hazardous chemicals, materials, substances, and devices and persons engaged in installing, repairing, or servicing ventilating equipment, air conditioning equipment, heating equipment, electrical or electronic appliances or equipment, or sanitary sewers and drains.
(26) To provide for the preservation of the public peace and to define, prohibit, abate, or remove nuisances.
(27) To adopt ordinances, including emergency ordinances effective for no more than 30 days, rules, regulations, plans, directives, maps, or bylaws in furtherance of the powers of the Town, whether under the authority of this charter or of other general or special enactments of the General Assembly. The adoption process shall follow the applicable State law adoption procedure as applicable to the subject matter, except that proposed ordinances or amendments thereto shall have two readings before the Selectboard: the first reading shall be for information purposes; the second reading shall be for a public hearing on the ordinance or amendment thereto and adoption or nonadoption by the Selectboard. All publishing, posting, recording, and referendum requirements shall be as set forth in the applicable statute for the adoption of an ordinance.
(28) To provide by ordinance for the abatement of nuisances and the prosecution of violations of the ordinances or other regulations enacted under the authority of this charter, and to fix the penalty for such violation.
(29) To report annually in writing on the Town’s progress toward accomplishing the goals set out in the duly adopted Town Plan.
Amended 2003, No. M-6, § 2; 2003, No. M-21 (Adj. Sess.), § 2; 2011, No. M-10 (Adj. Sess.), § 2, eff. April 27, 2012.
