The Village of South Jacksonville went through some history last night. Village trustees began their codification process at 7PM last night, working on trying to complete a process of consolidating and cleaning out old ordinances from the code book at the village.
The village ordinances ranged from whipping horses, horses and bicycle speed limits, mandatory black outs and air raid warnings, and the prohibition of foreign insurance companies to solicit residents within the city’s limits. A few of the codes didn’t have dates on them, leaving many of the trustees to speculate that they were from the turn of the 20th century.
The village was working towards getting everything done by an August 30th deadline to have it completed by village attorneys and published to a revamped village website.
Trustee Dick Samples who led the meeting after Mayor Harry Jennings left due to feeling under the weather said that the deadline needed to be pushed out at least another month. “It’s something that absolutely needs to be done. We are working on it as hard as we can right now. It will make life a lot easier for not only the trustees but anybody who wants to look up something in the village. It will all be published online if you simply go to the website when it’s finished just like the City of Jacksonville. The city has it and we need it. I doubt will meet the August 30th deadline. If Tiffanee Peters got us another 30 days with the law firm, it will make life a lot easier on getting this done. We’ve come a long way in the last 30 days versus where we were 30 days ago.”
The village is looking at consolidating their fine schedules for most violations to a minimum of $50 for the first violation, $100 for a second violation and subsequent violations leading up to court intervention. A complete list of changes will be made available once the process is completed within the next month. Nearly a dozen ordinances are going to be discussed at the village’s committee of the whole meeting coming up on August 27th.