County to hold public hearing on codification
By Steve Herring
Published in News on April 18, 2011 1:46 PM
Wayne County commissioners will hold a public hearing Tuesday morning on their plans to codify the county's ordinances -- a first step to making the ordinances available online.
Currently each ordinance stands on its own and codifying simply means they would be collected and organized in a manner similar to the way state laws are recorded.
The hearing will be held at 9:15 a.m. in the commissioners' meeting room on the fourth floor of the county courthouse annex. An agenda briefing will get under way at 8 a.m., followed by the board meeting at 9 a.m.
A second public hearing will be held on a request to rename Harper Ham Road to Dyke Smith Road.
The board decided last month to hold the ordinance hearing and to eliminate three ordinances that have been superseded by state law dealing with second-hand precious metal businesses, county 911 telephone service charges and drug paraphernalia.
A fourth ordinance regarding the Economic Development Commission also was deleted. The commission was dissolved years ago and replaced by the Wayne County Development Alliance.
The county is expected to replace two ordinances with stronger-worded ones. One ordinance that is apparently not being used deals with false alarms generated by home alarm systems. Another about noise complaints is too vague for the courts, county officials said.
The county has been working with a company to have the ordinances converted to a format that can be placed on the county's website. However, the ordinances first must be codified.
Maintaining electronic versions means that the county would not have to maintain so many large bound volumes that are outdated as soon as they are printed. A bound copy would still be available.
Also last month, the board amended the county's road-naming ordinance by removing a March deadline for hearings on such changes.
The ordinance had required that public hearings on road name changes be held at the board's first meeting in March.
Harper Ham Road starts in Wayne County and is named Dyke Smith Road when it crosses into Greene County.