The Gainesville City council reviewed two bids for “codification,” a process to clean up, analyze and develop city ordinances so that they are easy to understand, enact and enforce. The process would also involve putting the ordinances on a website that would be available to the general public to view, print and access. The two bids were from companies Civil Plus and General Code.
“They take all of our ordinances, and they have a staff of attorneys who go through them. They find out where we’re lacking. They find out if we’re double covered. They’ll determine if we have ordinances that are obsolete,” City Clerk Lisa Goodnight explained.
The company Civic Plus would offer the service with an initial investment of $10,699, and an annual reoccurring cost of $1,750 per year.
The company General Code would have an initial investment of $8,695 and a reoccurring charge of $2,500 for “custom legislation,” which is similar to the Civic Plus yearly fee, she said.
The process is expected to take about 18 months to complete, and the company would work in coordination with the Gainesville city attorney, Jessica Blackburn.
Currently the ordinances are hard copy only, available at City Hall, and are often difficult and time consuming to find when residents request certain information, and then confusing and hard to understand once they are found.
While Councilwomen Lana Bushong and Renee Schmucker said they believed the city needed to go forward with it, Councilman Dana Crisp said he was concerned with the high cost of a service that isn’t a required upgrade. No action was taken and the topic was tabled for future discussion.