CHAPTER 203
AN ACT TO AMEND CHAPTER 283, VOLUME 21, LAWS OF DELAWARE, ENTITLED "AN ACT TO INCORPORATE THE TOWN OF LITTLE CREEK" RELATING TO THE ADOPTION AND ENFORCEMENT OF TOWN ORDINANCES.
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Delaware (two-thirds of all Members elected to each House concurring therein):
Section 1. Chapter 283, Volume 21, Laws of Delaware, is amended by striking out all of Sections 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 thereof and inserting in lieu thereof new Sections 7, 8, and 9 to read as follows:
Section 7. The Town shall have all powers possible for the Town to have under the Constitution and Laws of Delaware as fully and completely as though they were specifically enumerated in this Act. In furtherance thereof, the Town Commissioners are hereby vested with the authority to enact ordinances and adopt resolutions relating to any subject within the powers or functions of the Town, or relating to the government of the Town, its peace and order, its sanitation, beauty, the health, safety, convenience and comfort of its population, and the protection and preservation of property and to fix, impose and enforce payment of fines and penalties for the violation of such ordinances or resolutions, and no provision of the Town Charter as to ordinances or resolutions on any particular subject shall be held to be restrictive of the power to enact ordinances or resolutions on any subject not specifically enumerated.
The Town may exercise any of its powers or perform any of its functions and may participate in the financing thereof, jointly or in cooperation, by contract or otherwise with any one or more states or civil divisions or agencies thereof, including the government of Kent County, or the United States or any agency thereof.
It shall be the duty of the Town Commissioners, at a reasonable time or times, to compile the ordinances, codes,
orders and rules of the Town Commissioners. The Town Commissioners shall have a reasonable number of copies printed for the use of the officials of the Town and for public information. From time to time, upon the enactment of new ordinances, codes, rules and regulations, or upon the enactment of amendments to the same, the Clerk of the Town Commissioners shall enroll the same in the journal of the Town Commissioners and shall keep copies of the same in a book to be provided for that purpose so that the same may be readily examined.
Section 8. (a) The Justice of the Peace sitting (whether regularly, specially or otherwise) in the Justice of the Peace Court located nearest to the Town shall have jurisdiction and cognizance of all offenses against the provisions of this Act or the authorized ordinances of the Town committed within the limits of the Town as far as to arrests and hold to bail or fine and imprison offenders; provided that he shall impose no fine or penalty in excess of that fixed by the ordinance and shall not commit to prison for a longer term than 30 days. The Kent County Jail may be used for imprisonment under the provisions of this Act provided that the Town Commissioners shall pay for the board of persons committed for breaches or ordinances which are not breaches of the general law.
(b) No ordinance of the Town shall provide for a fine in excess of $100 or imprisonment of more than 30 days.
(c) Any person convicted before such Justice of the Peace for the violation of any Town ordinance may appeal from such conviction to the Superior Court in and for Kent County upon giving bond to the State with or without surety, such as the Justice of the Peace shall determine, binding the person taking the appeal before the Court. Notice of such an appeal shall be given to such Justice of the Peace within five (5) days from the time of conviction, counting the day of conviction as one, and the bond with surety, if any, shall be filed within five (5) days. No bond upon appeal from a conviction for violation of a Town ordinance shall exceed the sum of one hundred dollars ($100). Such appeal shall be prosecuted and the proceedings shall be had as in an appeal from a conviction before a Justice of the
Peace in the case of a violation of the laws relating to the operation of motor vehicles.
Section 9. The Town Commissioners may appoint a police force consisting of such person or persons as the Town Commissioners may deem wise and advisable. The Town Commissioners shall from time to time adopt rules and regulations as may be necessary for the organization, government and control of the police force. The members of the force shall be subject to the direction of the Town Commissioners and may be removed by the Town Commissioners at any time. They shall preserve peace and order and shall compel obedience within the Town limits to the ordinances of the Town and the laws of the State ; and they shall have such other duties as the Town Commissioners shall from time to time prescribe.
Each member of the police force shall be vested with all powers and authority of a constable of Kent County within the Town limits and within one mile outside such limits, and in the case of the pursuit of an offender, his power and authority shall extend to all parts of the State of Delaware.
Every person sentenced to imprisonment by the Justice of the Peace, as provided in Section 8 above, shall be delivered by a member of the police force to the gent County Jail, to be there imprisoned for the term of the sentence.
It shall be the duty of the police to suppress riotous, disorderly or turbulent assemblages of persons in the streets and public places of the Town, or the noisy conduct of any person in the same, and upon view of the above, or upon the view of the violation of any ordinance of the Town relating to the peace and good order thereof, the police shall have the right and power to arrest without warrant and to take the offender before the Justice of the Peace, as aforesaid.
Section 2. Chapter 283, Volume 21, Laws of Delaware, is amended by renumbering Section 12 through 19 to read as Sections 10 through 17.