The inhabitants of the City of Clayton, within the corporate limits as now established or as may hereafter be established, shall continue to be a municipal body politic and corporate in perpetuity under the name of the City of Clayton.
The municipal government provided by this charter shall be of the type generally known as a council-manager government. Subject only to the limitations imposed by the Constitution of the State of Missouri and this charter, all powers of the city shall be vested in a board of aldermen, except as hereinafter otherwise specified.
The city shall have all powers of local self-government and home rule and all powers possible for any city to have under the constitution and laws of the State of Missouri or which the general assembly would be competent to grant to any city of any class or population group, and except as prohibited by the constitution, the city may exercise all municipal powers, functions, rights, privileges, and immunities of every name and nature. Such powers shall be exercised in the manner prescribed in this charter or, if not prescribed herein, in such manner as may be prescribed by the board of aldermen.
The enumeration of particular powers in this charter is not exclusive of others, nor restrictive of general words or phrases granting powers, nor shall a grant or failure to grant power in this article impair a power granted in any other part of this charter; and whether powers, objects, or purposes are expressed conjunctively or disjunctively, they shall be construed so as to permit the city to exercise freely any one or more such powers as to any one or more such objects for any one or more such purposes.
[Ord. No. 5603, 12-19-2000, passed by majority vote 4-3-2001]
The city is hereby divided into three wards bounded and numbered as shown on the map which is attached to and made a part of this charter. (See last page).[1]
On or before the first day of June following the first mayoral election after the year in which the federal decennial census is taken, the board of aldermen shall appoint a redistricting commission consisting of three registered voters, one from each ward of the city, who have resided in the City of Clayton for at least five years immediately prior to their appointment, and who shall not be officers or employees of the city. The commission shall ascertain whether the wards contain approximately equal numbers of residents and shall, if it finds substantial inequalities, recommend changes in ward boundaries to the end that wards shall be compact and contiguous and contain approximately equal numbers of residents. The commission shall make its report in writing to the board of aldermen not later than the first day of August following the date of the appointment of its members. The board of aldermen, after a public hearing, shall take final action on the recommendations of the commission not later than the fifteenth day of September following receipt of such report. The board may adopt, reject, or modify the recommendations of the commission. If the board of aldermen fails to take final action on the recommendations of the commission by the date specified above, such recommendations shall become effective without board action. Any changes in ward boundaries made pursuant to this section shall be effective for the following regular election and for each succeeding election until changed in accordance with the provisions of this charter.
[1]
Editor's Note–The Ward Boundaries Map is included as an attachment to this chapter.