Guest Editorial: Who’s writing our ordinances?

Has the one who writes our county ordinances left, too?

The Ordinance No. 771, concerning the erection of the MLK monument on the grounds of the new county administration building, as written and passed at the last council meeting is doomed to failure. It is so vaguely written that it is not even an ordinance. It’s just some kind of throw-it-all-at-the-wall-and-see-if-it-sticks writing.

The way this ordinance reads, it “provides for a new county administration building so as to provide support for the erection of” some monument, somewhere, at some price. Fill in the blanks.

The ordinance also provides support for a museum at some price, in some form.

As our Council Council woman, Shirley Greene, has said so many times – “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” This ordinance, as written, has planned-to-fail written all over it.

How will we hold anyone accountable for this, whether it’s you (council), the developer or someone else? This ordinance is just way too vague. It’s like someone woke up and said, Oh, I like this.” And that’s all that’s on this page. There’s no specificity to this ordinance. Who is writing our ordinances?

Let’s get specific. Let’s plan. Let’s find out what’s in this ordinance. Otherwise, how are the citizens to know what you’re doing when they read this? Where is the monument going to be located? It doesn’t say in this ordinance.

Nothing is specific in the ordinance. It has failure written all over it due to its vagueness. Its intentions are good. Sadly, however, the vagueness of the ordinance dooms it to failure.

This new government needs to dig in and learn how to write an ordinance. This one is unacceptable.

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