The governing body of a municipality shall have the power:
1. Ordinances. To enact or adopt all such ordinances, resolutions, and regulations, not
repugnant to the constitution and laws of this state, as may be proper and necessary
to carry into effect the powers granted to such municipality or as the general welfare of
the municipality may require, and to repeal, alter, or amend the same. The governing
body of a municipality may adopt by ordinance the conditions, provisions, and terms of
a building code, a fire prevention code, a plumbing code, an electrical code, a sanitary
code, vehicle traffic code, or any other standard code which contains rules and
regulations printed as a code in book or pamphlet form by reference to such code or
portions thereof alone without setting forth in said ordinance the conditions, provisions,
limitations, and terms of such code. When all or part of any such code has been
incorporated by reference into any ordinance, it has the same force and effect as
though it had been spread at large in such ordinance without further or additional
posting or publication. A copy of such standard code or portion thereof shall be filed for
use and examination by the public in the office of the city auditor of such municipality
prior to adoption. The adoption of any such standard code by reference shall be
construed to incorporate such amendments thereto as may be made therein from time
to time, and such copy of such standard code so filed shall at all times be kept current
in the office of the city auditor of such municipality. The adoption of any such code or
codes heretofore by any municipality is hereby validated. Fines, penalties, and
forfeitures for the violation thereof may be provided within the limits specified in this
chapter notwithstanding that such offense may be punishable also as a public offense
under the laws of this state.
2. Finances and property. To control the finances, to make payment of its debts and
expenses, to contract debts and borrow money, to establish charges for any city or
other services, and to control the property of the corporation.
3. Appropriation. To appropriate money for corporate purposes only, and to provide for
the payment of debts and expenses of the corporation.
4. Tax levy. To levy and collect taxes on real and personal property for general and
special purposes.
5. Borrowing money. To borrow money on the credit of the corporation for corporation
purposes and to issue bonds therefor as limited and provided by title 21.
6. Refunding obligations. To issue bonds in place of or to supply means to meet maturing
bonds, or for the consolidation or funding of bonds or any floating indebtedness of the
municipality in the manner provided in title 21.
7. Certificates of indebtedness. To borrow money in anticipation of revenues to be
derived from taxes already levied as provided and limited in title 21.
8. Streets, sidewalks, and public grounds. To lay out, establish, open, alter, repair, clean,
widen, vacate, grade, pave, park, or otherwise improve and regulate the use of streets,
alleys, avenues, sidewalks, crossings, and public grounds, and to acquire, construct,
maintain, and operate parking lots and facilities for motor vehicles; to regulate or
prevent any practice having a tendency to annoy persons frequenting the same; and to
prevent and regulate obstructions and encroachments upon the same.
9. Powers relating to parks - Planting grass and trees - Powers respecting parks. To
regulate the planting of trees and grass on boulevards, berms, parks, parkways, and
public grounds, and to exercise the same powers as are granted to a board of park
commissioners respecting the parks of the municipality, if any, until the municipality
has been organized into a park district.
10. Lighting of public places. To provide for the lighting of streets, alleys, avenues, parks,
and public grounds.
11. Lights to inhabitants of city. To provide for the furnishing of lights to the inhabitants of
the city.
12. Gas and water mains - Sewers - Electric light and gas plants. To regulate the laying of
gas or water mains and pipes, and the building, laying, or repairing of sewers, tunnels,
and drains, and the erecting of gas and electric light plants. Any company or
association of persons organized for the purpose of manufacturing illuminating gas or
electricity to supply municipalities and the inhabitants thereof shall have authority,
subject to existing rights, with the consent of the governing body of the municipality, to
erect gas or electric light works and lay down pipes and string wires or poles in streets
or alleys subject to such regulations as the municipality may prescribe by ordinance.
13. Structures under sidewalks - Snow and obstructions. To regulate the use of all
structures under sidewalks and to require the owner or occupant of any premises to
keep the sidewalks in front of or along such premises free from snow or other
obstruction.
14. Streets - Cleanliness of and injury to. To regulate and prevent the throwing or
depositing of ashes, offal, dirt, garbage, or any offensive matter in, and to prevent
injury to, any street, avenue, alley, or public ground.
15. Curbs and gutters. To provide for and regulate curbs and gutters.
16. Advertising and obstructions in public places. To regulate and prevent the use of
streets, sidewalks, and public grounds for signs, signposts, awnings, telegraph and
telephone poles, posting handbills and advertisements, the exhibition or carrying of
banners, placards, advertisements, or handbills, and the flying of flags, banners, or
signs across the streets or from houses.
17. Traffic and sales in public places. To regulate traffic and sales upon the streets,
sidewalks, and public places.
18. Speed of vehicles and locomotives. To regulate the speed of vehicles and locomotives
within the corporate limits of the corporation, except that the speed limit for vehicles on
those streets designated as part of any state highway shall be determined by mutual
agreement with the director of the department of transportation.
19. Numbering lots. To regulate the numbering of houses and lots.
20. Naming streets. To name and change the name of any street, avenue, alley, or other
public place.
21. Railroad companies - Ditches and rights of way. To require railroad companies to
make, keep open, and repair ditches, drains, sewers, and culverts along and under
their tracks so that filthy and stagnant pools of water cannot stand on their grounds or
right of way and so that the natural or artificial drainage of adjacent property shall not
be impeded. To require railroad companies to fence their respective railroads or any
portion of the same and construct cattle guards and public roads and keep the same in
repair within the limits of the corporation.
22. Extending ways and pipes over railroad property. To extend by condemnation, subject
to chapter 32-15, or otherwise any street, alley, or highway over, under, or across, or to
construct or lay any sewer, water pipe, or main under or through, any railroad track,
right of way, or land of any railroad company within the corporate limits.
23. Culverts, drains, and cesspools. To construct and keep in repair culverts, drains,
sewers, catch basins, manholes, cesspools, vaults, cisterns, areas, and pumps within
the corporate limits.
24. Licenses. To fix the amount, terms, and manner of issuing and revoking licenses.
25. Plumbers and plumbing business. To adopt, by ordinance, if it has a system of
waterworks or sewerage, rules and regulations governing plumbing, drainage, and
ventilation of plumbing within the limits of the municipality. The standards provided for
in such ordinance, however, shall not be lower than the minimum standards provided
for in any state plumbing code adopted pursuant to chapter 43-18, but may be higher
than such standards. It may prescribe rules and regulations for all materials,
constructions, alteration and inspection of pipes, tanks, and fixtures by which water is
supplied to the citizens of the municipality, or by which waste or sewage is carried, and
may provide that such pipes, tanks, and fixtures shall not be placed in any building in
the municipality except in accordance with plans which are approved under the
provisions of said ordinance, and that no plumbing shall be done except by plumbers
registered and licensed under state law and under the ordinance, except by a property
owner on that person's own premises which are occupied as that person's home or
place of residence. The ordinance may provide that all work done by an owner upon
that person's own premises must comply with the provisions of the state plumbing
code or a local ordinance, whichever shall prescribe the highest standards. Before the
municipality may require a plumber to be licensed by the municipality, it shall provide
standards for plumbing in a municipality equal to or in excess of those provided by the
state plumbing code. A municipality may adopt the state plumbing code as a whole as
an ordinance of the municipality by reference without the necessity of publishing the
text therefor.
26. Transient business and amusements. To license, tax, regulate, remove, suppress, and
prohibit fortune-tellers, astrologers, and all persons practicing palmistry, clairvoyancy,
mesmerism, and spiritualism, hawkers, peddlers, pawnbrokers, theatricals and other
exhibitions, shows and amusements, ticket scalpers, and employment agencies, and
to revoke the license at pleasure, except that the provision in this subsection with
reference to hawkers and peddlers shall not apply to persons selling or offering for
sale the products raised or grown on land within this state.
27. Draymen, taxi drivers, porters, and others pursuing like occupations. To license, tax,
regulate, and prescribe the rates charged by draymen, parcel delivery men,
busdrivers, taxi drivers, porters, expressmen, watermen, and others pursuing like
occupations, and the operation of taxicabs. Provided, all motor vehicles used in
ridesharing arrangements, as defined in section 8-02-07, are not taxicabs.
28. Runners for stages and other things or persons. To license, regulate, tax, and restrain
runners for stages, buses, cars, public houses, or other things or persons.
29. Alcoholic beverages. To regulate the use and to regulate and license the sale of
alcoholic beverages subject to the provisions contained in title 5.
30. Bowling alleys, pool, billiards, theaters, and motion picture theaters. To license,
regulate, and tax bowling alleys, theaters, motion picture theaters, and pool or billiard
tables, or any other tables or implements kept or used for similar purposes in any
public place.
31. Markets, market houses, and slaughterhouses. To establish, purchase, erect, lease,
rent, manage, maintain, regulate, and provide for the use of markets and market
houses, municipal slaughterhouses, or abattoirs.
32. Dairy, meat, and food products - Inspection and regulation of sale. To provide for the
inspection of milk, cream, and butter sold within the limits of the municipality, and of
any dairy or dairy herd kept for the production of such milk, cream, and butter. To
prescribe the terms upon which sales of such milk, cream, and butter may be made
and to fix penalties for violations. To prescribe regulations for the slaughtering of
animals to be sold as meat. To prescribe generally sanitary and regulatory provisions
as applied to food products sold within the limits of the municipality and to prohibit the
sale of impure and diseased milk or other food products.
33. Public peace in municipality. To provide for keeping and preserving the peace and
quietude of the municipality, prevent disorderly conduct, prohibit public intoxication,
and prevent and suppress riots, affrays, disturbances, and disorderly assemblies in
any place.
34. Fire limits. To prescribe fire limits within which wooden buildings shall not be erected,
placed, or repaired without permission; provide that when a building within such limits
has been damaged by fire, decay, or otherwise to the extent of fifty percent of its
valuation, it shall be torn down and removed; prescribe the manner of ascertaining
such damage; provide for the removal of any structure or building erected contrary to
the prescribed rules; declare each day's continuance of such building or structure a
separate offense and to prescribe the penalties therefor; and define fireproof material.
35. Fire hazards. To prevent and provide for remedying any dangerous construction or
condition of any building, enclosure, or manufactory, or any equipment used therein;
regulate and prevent the carrying on of manufactories creating a fire hazard; prevent a
deposit or keeping of ashes or refuse in unsafe places; and require all buildings and
places to be put and kept in a safe condition.
36. Waterworks system. To purchase, acquire by eminent domain in accordance with
chapter 32-15, erect, lease, rent, manage, and maintain any system of waterworks,
well reservoirs, pipes, machinery, buildings, and all other property comprising a
waterworks system, such as hydrants, supply of water, fire stations, fire signals, fire
engines, or fire apparatus that may be of use in the prevention and extinguishment of
fires, and to fix and regulate the rates, use, and sale of water.
37. Fire equipment - Use beyond municipal limits. To use its fire department to attend to
fires and render assistance to other municipalities within or without this state, or to
private property, including farm buildings located outside the city limits, and the fire
department, its members, and apparatus, when engaged outside the limits of the
municipality, shall be deemed to be engaged in the performance of a public duty as
fully as if serving within the limits of the municipality.
38. Storage of combustible material - Use of fireworks and open flame lights. To regulate
and prohibit the storage of combustible or explosive material, the use of open flame
lights, the building of bonfires, and the use or sale of firecrackers and fireworks.
39. Lumberyards. To regulate or prohibit the keeping of any lumberyard and the keeping or
selling of any lumber or other combustible material within the fire limits.
40. Steam boilers. To provide for the inspection of steam boilers.
41. Jails. To establish, maintain, and regulate a jail and, with the consent of the board of
county commissioners, to use the county jail for the confinement of persons charged
with or convicted of the violation of any ordinance.
42. Cruelty to animals. To prohibit and punish cruelty to animals.
43. Vagrants and prostitutes. To restrain and punish vagrants, mendicants, and prostitutes.
44. Nuisances. To declare what shall constitute a nuisance and to prevent, abate, and
remove the same.
45. Health regulations. To make regulations necessary or expedient for the promotion of
health or for the suppression of disease.
46. Cemeteries. To establish, maintain, and regulate cemeteries within or without the
municipality, acquire land therefor by purchase or otherwise, and cause cemeteries to
be removed, and to prohibit the establishment thereof within, or within one mile [1.61
kilometers] of, the corporate limits.
47. Animals and poultry. To regulate or prohibit the running at large of animals and poultry,
provide for the establishment and maintenance of public pounds for the impounding of
any animals or poultry running at large or tethered in any street in violation of
municipal ordinances, establish procedures for the impounding and discharging of
animals and poultry impounded, make the expenses and fines imposed a lien upon
such stock or poultry, and provide for the sale of the stock or poultry to satisfy such
lien.
48. Packinghouses and other offensive businesses. To control the location and regulate
the management and construction of packinghouses, renderies, bone and soap
factories, slaughterhouses, livery stables, and blacksmith shops, and to prohibit any
offensive or unwholesome business within, or within one mile [1.61 kilometers] of, the
corporate limits.
49. Unwholesome or nauseous places. To compel the owner of any cellar, stable, pigsty,
privy, sewer, or other unwholesome or nauseous thing or place to cleanse, abate, or
remove the same, and to regulate the location thereof.
50. Public buildings. To construct, operate, and maintain all public buildings necessary for
the use of the municipality.
51. Auctioneers, brokers, lumberyards, and public scales. To license, tax, and regulate
auctioneers, brokers, lumberyards, and public scales.
52. Supplies. To provide that supplies needed for the use of the city be furnished by
contract let to the lowest responsible bidder, except the city may contract for
cooperative purchases pursuant to a joint-powers agreement under chapter 54-40.3.
This section does not apply to construction of public improvement as defined in
chapter 48-01.2.
53. Secondhand and junk stores. To license, tax, and regulate secondhand and junk
stores and to forbid and punish the purchase and receipt by them from minors of any
articles without the written consent of their parents or guardians.
54. Insure public property. To insure the public property of the municipality.
55. Real and personal property. To acquire by lease, purchase, gift, condemnation, or
other lawful means and to hold in its corporate name for use and control as provided
by law, both real and personal property and easements and rights of way within or
without the corporate limits or outside this state for all purposes authorized by law or
necessary to the exercise of any power granted.
56. Transfer property. To convey, sell, dispose of, or lease personal and real property of
the municipality as provided by this title.
57. Franchises. To grant franchises or privileges to persons, associations, corporations, or
limited liability companies, any such franchise, except when given to a railroad
company, to extend for a period of not to exceed twenty years, and to regulate the use
of the same, franchises granted pursuant to the provisions of this title not to be
exclusive or irrevocable but subject to the regulatory powers of the governing body.
58. Airports. To acquire, establish, construct, expand, own, lease, control, equip, improve,
maintain, operate, regulate, and police airports and landing fields within or without the
geographic limits of the municipality as provided in title 2.
59. Public works project. To accept aid from, cooperate and contract with, and to comply
with and meet the requirements of any federal or state agency for the establishment,
construction, and maintenance of public works, including dams and reservoirs for
municipal water supply, for water conservation, flood control, prevention of stream
pollution, or sewage disposal. In furtherance thereof to acquire by purchase, lease,
gift, or condemnation the necessary lands, rights of way, and easements for such
projects, and to transfer and convey to the state or federal government, or any agency
thereof, such lands, rights of way, and easements in consideration of the
establishment and construction of, and the public benefits which will be derived from
any such project. To enter into an agreement with any such government, agency, or
municipality within or without this state, to hold such government, agency, or
municipality harmless from any and all liability or claim of liability arising from the
establishment, construction, and maintenance of such works, and to indemnify such
government, agency, or municipality for any such liability sustained by it and to pay all
costs of defending against any such claim. In furtherance thereof to acquire by
purchase, lease, gift, or, subject to chapter 32-15, condemnation, the necessary lands,
rights of way, and easements for such projects, and to transfer and convey to such
government, agency, or municipality, such lands, rights of way, and easements in
consideration of the establishment and construction of, and the public benefits which
will be derived from any such project, or to pay the cost of the acquisition of such
lands, rights of way, and easements by such government, agency, or municipality. All
actions herein authorized may be taken by resolution duly adopted by the governing
body of the municipality. Any and all actions and proceedings heretofore taken by any
municipality which are within the authority granted by this subsection are hereby
legalized and validated.
60. Special improvement assessments - Satisfaction. To make assessments as limited by
the laws of this state for local improvements on property adjoining or benefited thereby,
to collect the same in the manner provided by law, and to satisfy the tax lien on lands
subject to special assessments.
61. Public water supply. To prevent the pollution of or injury to any water supply belonging
to the municipality or any public water supply within, or within one mile
[1.61 kilometers] of, the limits of the municipality.
62. Band. To levy a tax as provided in this title for the purpose of providing a fund for the
maintenance or employment of a band for municipal purposes.
63. Radio reception. To regulate the installation and operation of motors and other
electrical or mechanical devices so as to prevent interference with radio reception.
64. Municipal plants. To sell, convey, and dispose of the plant or equipment of any public
utility owned by the municipality and to contract for the leasing or operation of such
plant, equipment, or utility by others, and to grant to the lessee or operator under such
a contract the right to purchase such plant, equipment, or utility upon such terms and
conditions as may be expressed in the contract, after authorization as provided by this
title.
65. Public dances. To license, tax, and regulate public dances or public dancehalls.
66. Light and power plants and gas transmission or distribution systems. To purchase,
acquire by eminent domain in accordance with chapter 32-15, erect, lease, rent,
manage, and maintain electric light and power plants, gasworks, steam heating plants
and appurtenances for distribution, and to regulate and fix the rates to its patrons and
to jointly, with other municipalities, acquire by eminent domain, erect, construct, lease,
rent, manage, and maintain any artificial or natural gas transmission or distribution
lines or plants.
67. Flood control projects, including floodplain management as provided under section