The Village of South Jacksonville took a step forward on one agenda item, and found that they still have a long way to go on another during the committee of the whole meeting last night.
Mayor Harry Jennings opened the special meeting at 6:30 pm by asking all in attendance to observe a moment of silence for those killed in the plane crash in Sangmon County Tuesday afternoon.
The Village Board unanimously approved the action item to remove antiquated ordinances that no longer have application in the village.
Village President Harry Jennings said that it has been a long process, but that going forward, the codification will make ordinances more accessible and and easier to update in the future.
“They were some very old and outdated ordinances, you have to remember that we have thousands of ordinances, and going through that process of weeding them out and getting them down to a very manageable amount. There is still a lot of work to be done, but coming up very soon, we will pass that whole codification process, and then once we do, all of the ordinances will be online for everyone to view.
It will be a much easier process in the future, because this has just taken so long because we had so many old ones to go through. We had ordinances that went all the way back to 1911 still on the books, just like you said- horse and buggy stuff.”
Jennings said that there is still more work to be done before the entire process is complete.
“There are still those that we are keeping, we are still going through and modifying and tweaking, and then we need to update it with the ones we have passed in the last year.”
During the committee of the whole meeting, Police Chief Tim Mann and Trustee Dick Samples updated the board after reviewing a comprehensive Landlord Tenant ordinance from the city of DeKalb. Both said they thought the ordinance was much more encompassing than needed in the village, but that it was one of the best they had reviewed to date.
Chief Mann said that it is more important to him and his department to take the time to come up with the right ordinance for the village, than rush the process.
“It has not changed at all, we are at the same position we were three months ago. Again it’s just a work in progress, and we have asked the counsel to look at the issues that we are dealing with and help us, as well as work with the landlord associations and the landlords in town to help develop a policy, or in our case an ordinance that will better everyone and ensure the safety of our residents.”
The Village Board also made action items for the next meeting in favor of closing two accounts at Farmers State Bank and moving the proceeds to Prairie State Bank in an effort to complete a past process of transferring the accounts for the village.