City's Code of Ordinances Reformatted

A reformatted Code of Ordinances will debut on the City of San Angelo’s website Oct. 1.

The Code of Ordinances is the set of City Council-approved municipal laws that govern everything from speed limits on City streets to how much citizens pay for water to how each parcel of property is zoned to whether BB guns can be fired within the city limits. It can be accessed at cosatx.us/ordinances.

Such a reformatting is meant primarily to make a code easier to understand by updating and modernizing it, correcting typos, clarifying language, incorporating consistent interpretive language, making clear the procedures a governmental entity uses, removing outdated or redundant language or laws, correcting titles, and cross-referencing. 

On Sept. 2, the City Council approved the recoding, which primarily updates and modernizes the Code, corrects titles and cross-references. The cross-references between the code’s new and former versions will be available on the Code of Ordinances web page. The new code includes all ordinances adopted through May 20, 2014.

“Simply put, these are ‘housekeeping matters’ that consist only of formatting and non-substantive changes,” City Clerk Alicia Ramirez explained. 

A reformatting of city codes is recommended every 10-12 years. San Angelo’s last reformatting was adopted in 1996. 

Every City department reviewed the proposed changes. Substantive changes to individual chapters, articles and sections recommended by the codifier and approved by the related City department must be reviewed and approved by the City Attorney and then by the City Council.