Assistant aldermen, when to be abolished. Aldermen, Aldermen] at large. common council of the city of New York. The board of assistant aldermen is hereby abolished from and after the first day of January, eighteen hundred and seventy-five; and from and after that date the board of aldermen is hereby declared to be the common council, and shall solely possess the powers and perform all the duties by law conferred or imposed upon the board of aldermen, and board of assistant aldermen, the common council, or any one or more of them. SEC. 3. Such aldermen shall be elected as hereinafter provided. SEC. 4. The board of aldermen now in office shall hold office until the first Monday of January, in the year eighteen hundred and seventy-five, the same being the term for which they were elected. There shall be twenty-one aldermen elected at the general state election which shall occur in the year eighteen hundred and seventy-four, three of whom shall be elected in each senate district of the city, as now constituted, and shall be residents of the district in which they are elected, but no voter shall vote for more than two of said aldermen. There shall also be elected six aldermen at large, to be voted for on a separate ballot, but no voter shall vote for more than four of the said aldermen at large. The members of the board of aldermen shall hold office for the space of one year, and shall take office on the first Monday in January next succeeding their election, at noon. Annually thereafter, at the general state election, there shall be elected a full board of aldermen as hereinbefore provided. how filled. [Amended by sec. 1, chap. 757, laws of 1873.] Any Vacancies, vacancy now existing, or which may hereafter occur, in either the board of aldermen, or board of assistant aldermen, by reason of the death, or resignation, or of any other cause, of a member of either of said boards, shall be filled by election by the board in which such vacancy exists or shall arise, by a vote of a majority of all the members elected to said board, and the person so elected to fill any such vacancy shall serve until the first day of January, at noon, next succeeding the first general election, occurring not less than thirty days after the happening of such vacancy, but not beyond the expiration of the term in which the vacancy shall occur, and at such election, a person shall be elected to serve the remainder, if any, of such unexpired term. From and after the termination of the term of office of the board of assistant aldermen, as herein provided, the board of aldermen shall alone constitute the common council, and shall exercise the entire legislative powers of the said city. The aldermen shall from the time of the To be superpassage of this act be the supervisors of the county of New York.* visors. SEC. 5. The boards shall meet in separate chambers, and quorum. * See Appendix A. Officers, election of, etc. a majority of each shall constitute a quorum; but the comptroller, the commissioner of public works, the corporation counsel, and the president of each department, shall be entitled to seats in each board, and to notice of its meetings, and shall have the right to participate in the discussions of each board, but in nowise shall be considered as members of either board, and shall not have the right to vote in either board. SEC. 6. Each board shall 1. Choose a president from its own members by a call of the names of the members of the board, upon which call each member shall announce his choice, and when once chosen he can be removed before the expiration of his term as alderman or assistant alderman only by a vote, taken by a call of ayes or noes, of four-fifths of all the members of the board of which he shall have been chosen president; 2. Appoint a clerk and other officers; 3. Determine the rules of its own proceedings; 4. Be the judge of the election returns and qualifications of its own members, subject, however, to the review of any court of competent jurisdiction; 5. Keep a journal of its proceedings; 6. Sit with open doors; 7. Have the authority to compel the attendance of absent members, and to punish its members for disorderly behavior, and to expel any member, with the concurrence of two-thirds of the members elected to the board. But no alderman or assistant alderman shall sit or act as a magistrate in any judicial matter or proceeding. This section, however, shall not be construed to require or authorize a reorganization of the existing board of aldermen, or board of assistant aldermen. SEC. 7. [As amended by sec. 2, chap. 757, laws of 1873.] Every member expelled from either board shall thereby forfeit all his rights and powers as alderman or assistant alderman. SEC. 8. [As amended by sec. 3, chap. 757, laws of 1873.] The stated and occasional meetings of each Meetings. board shall be regulated by its own resolutions and rules, and both boards may meet at the same time or on different days, as they may severally deem expedient. approved SEC. 9. Every legislative act of the common council Acts to be shall be by resolution or ordinance; and every ordinancer, or resolution shall, before it shall take effect, be presented, duly certified, to the mayor for his approval. SEC. 10. [As amended by sec. 4, chap. 757, laws of 1873.] The mayor shall return such ordinance or resolution to the board in which it originated within ten days after receiving it, or at the next meeting of such board after the expiration of said ten days. SEC. 11. If he approve it, he shall sign it. If he dis- veto. approve it, he shall specify his objections thereto in Proceedings in case of veto. writing. If he do not return it with such disapproval within the time above specified, it shall take effect as if he had approved it. SEC. 12. Such objections of the mayor shall be entered at large on the journal of the board in which said ordinance or resolution originated. SEC. 13. The board to which such ordinance or resolution shall have been returned, with objections, shall, after ten days and within fifteen days after such ordinance or resolution shall have been so returned, proceed to reconsider and vote upon the same; and if the same shall, on reconsideration, be again passed by both boards by the votes of at least two-thirds of all the members elected to each board, but in no case by a less vote than was necessary on its first passage, it shall take effect. But if the ordinance or resolution shall fail to receive, upon the first vote thereon, such number of affirmative votes, it shall be deemed finally lost. In all cases the vote shall be taken by ayes and noes, and the names of the persons voting for or against its passage, on such reconsideration, shall be entered in the journal of each board. In case an ordinance or resolution shall embrace more than one distinct subject, the mayor may approve the provisions relating to one or more subjects and disapprove the others. In such case, those which he shall approve shall become effective, and those which he shall not approve shall be reconsidered by the board, and shall only become effective if again passed as above provided. |