2023 West Virginia Code › Chapter 8. Municipal Corporations › Article 21. Board of Park and Recreation Commissioners › §8-21-10. General Powers of Board; Enactment and Enforcement of Rules and Regulations; Counsel

The board shall have the necessary, appropriate, convenient and incidental powers and authority to manage and control all public parks, parkways, playgrounds, athletic fields, stadiums, swimming pools, skating rinks or arenas and other public park and recreational facilities of all kinds used as a part of said public park and recreation system or as a means of maintaining places of beauty, education and recreation, and promoting the health, property, lives, decency, morality and good order of the general public, and particularly of the inhabitants of the city and vicinity; to abate or cause to be abated all nuisances affecting same; to regulate or prohibit the selling of any article, goods, wares or merchandise within said park and recreation system so designated; to regulate or prohibit the placing of signs, billboards, posters and advertisements within said park and recreation system as so designated, or the grounds immediately adjacent thereto; to have the same kept in good order and free from obstruction for the use and benefit of the public; to restrict and prohibit vagrants, mendicants, beggars, tramps, prostitutes or disorderly individuals therefrom; to establish, construct, improve, extend, develop, maintain and operate such parks, parkways, playgrounds, athletic fields, stadiums, swimming pools, skating rinks or arenas and other public park and recreational facilities, whether of a like or different nature, on any grounds controlled by said board; to acquire for public use by lease or otherwise lands either within or without the corporate limits of the city; to cause any public street, avenue, road, alley, way, bridle path or walkway, which is a part of the public park and recreation system, to be graded, drained and surfaced; to construct, maintain and operate all necessary sewers and water lines in connection with said public park and recreation system; and to do any and all other things or acts which may in any way be necessary, appropriate, convenient or incidental to the use and enjoyment of said public park and recreation system by the general public as a place or places of beauty, education, entertainment and recreation.
In order to accomplish the foregoing purposes, said board is hereby empowered and authorized to promulgate, and amend from time to time, such rules and regulations as may be necessary, appropriate, convenient or incidental thereto; after codification of such rules and regulations, or any amendment thereto, by ordinance of the governing body which may provide penalties for a violation thereof, which codification is hereby authorized, to enforce the same by appropriate proceedings in any proper tribunal of this state, or any county, district or municipality thereof; and to employ such police officers as it shall deem proper and necessary. The city attorney shall be the official counsel for said board and shall advise it on all legal matters, but said board may, in its own discretion, employ other or additional counsel.