Sidney Discusses Updating Town Ordinances
April 15, 2020 at 10:43 p.m.
By Jackie [email protected]
“In the past couple of weeks, from what we’ve seen, there are some lingering questions about ordinances and wording, etc., etc.,” said Council President Sharon Rancourt.
She suggested the council check out American Legal Publishing out of Cincinnati, Ohio. Their only job is “codifying ordinances and language therein and bringing everything up to 2020 terms,” Rancourt said. “They actually do a complete revamp, bringing all of your ordinances up to code for 2020. They word it correctly, and at the same time, when you hire them, you can send them an idea,” saying the company can help word ordinances correctly.
One example Rancourt gave is in 2020 terms everything should be gender neutral; there should not be a his, her, etc.
“If you look at some of our ordinances, they are from as far back as 1915,” she said.
Clerk-treasurer Lydia Neal asked whether the town can retire ordinances that are no longer relevant, such as an example Rancourt brought up stating all the men would clean the streets of horse manure.
“I asked them that today, and you certainly can,” Rancourt said, noting there is a legal process to do that and the town would have to send the ordinance to the town attorney to have them retire it.
In cases of several ordinances covering the same thing, Rancourt said it wasn’t uncommon for towns to have a signature page stapled to the ordinance. American Legal Publishing would bring up to code what the town gives them, allowing the town to go through and highlight and say what they want and want to eliminate. A three-ring, tabbed binder is sent back to the town and any new ordinances would be sent to American Legal Publishing for them to look at and the town will be told which tab in their binder it will go into. In the process, the organization will make sure all ordinances are codified and if an ordinance is not, they will retroactively do it.
There was no motion made about whether to go forward with American Legal Publishing, but Rancourt said she was putting it out there so the town council could do some research and talk about it during May’s meeting.
Next, the council talked about whether Neal would accept people’s sewer bills at the town office.
The council decided if a resident came into the office, Neal would give that person an envelope with a label on it to mail to Gemini Billing to pay their sewer bill.
Neal noted the town will not accept payment at the office. Rancourt suggested Neal look at Staples or a similar venue to see if she can find stickers or some kind of signage to put in the office window to let people know about this.
“In the past couple of weeks, from what we’ve seen, there are some lingering questions about ordinances and wording, etc., etc.,” said Council President Sharon Rancourt.
She suggested the council check out American Legal Publishing out of Cincinnati, Ohio. Their only job is “codifying ordinances and language therein and bringing everything up to 2020 terms,” Rancourt said. “They actually do a complete revamp, bringing all of your ordinances up to code for 2020. They word it correctly, and at the same time, when you hire them, you can send them an idea,” saying the company can help word ordinances correctly.
One example Rancourt gave is in 2020 terms everything should be gender neutral; there should not be a his, her, etc.
“If you look at some of our ordinances, they are from as far back as 1915,” she said.
Clerk-treasurer Lydia Neal asked whether the town can retire ordinances that are no longer relevant, such as an example Rancourt brought up stating all the men would clean the streets of horse manure.
“I asked them that today, and you certainly can,” Rancourt said, noting there is a legal process to do that and the town would have to send the ordinance to the town attorney to have them retire it.
In cases of several ordinances covering the same thing, Rancourt said it wasn’t uncommon for towns to have a signature page stapled to the ordinance. American Legal Publishing would bring up to code what the town gives them, allowing the town to go through and highlight and say what they want and want to eliminate. A three-ring, tabbed binder is sent back to the town and any new ordinances would be sent to American Legal Publishing for them to look at and the town will be told which tab in their binder it will go into. In the process, the organization will make sure all ordinances are codified and if an ordinance is not, they will retroactively do it.
There was no motion made about whether to go forward with American Legal Publishing, but Rancourt said she was putting it out there so the town council could do some research and talk about it during May’s meeting.
Next, the council talked about whether Neal would accept people’s sewer bills at the town office.
The council decided if a resident came into the office, Neal would give that person an envelope with a label on it to mail to Gemini Billing to pay their sewer bill.
Neal noted the town will not accept payment at the office. Rancourt suggested Neal look at Staples or a similar venue to see if she can find stickers or some kind of signage to put in the office window to let people know about this.
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