My View by Jim Yacavone
Big news: Fannin County residents will soon be able to view an up-to-date version of the county’s code of ordinances online. Bill Simonds, the chairman of the county commission, and Lynn Doss, the county attorney, recently met with a representative of Municipal Code Corporation to have the county’s ordinances codified and published online as a true code of ordinances.
Believe it or not—and this is truly astounding—the last time Fannin County codified its ordinances and published a code of ordinances was 2007. That was also the last time that the public could view the county code online. While Simonds should be applauded for taking this step, one wonders why it took so long for Fannin County to update its code?
The concept of having a systematically ordered code of laws is not exactly a new idea. Hammurabi did it about 4,000 years ago. Governments have been publishing legal codes ever since—all governments, that is, except for Fannin County. I understand that it can take time for new ideas to reach a rural county like ours, but four millennia is a bit much, don’t you think?
The idea of local governments publishing their codes online so citizens can have easy access to the laws that govern them is also not new. Most local governments have been doing it for years—most governments, that is, except Fannin County. This could be the only county in Georgia where ignorance of the law is an excuse.
But here’s the real kicker—Georgia counties have been required by state law since 2001 to publish a code of ordinances and update it annually. Fannin County has not complied with the law since 2007. I don’t know if the county complied with the law before that. The only reason Fannin County is doing it now is because I stumbled across the statute and brought it to the attention of Simonds and Doss. Simonds told me he didn’t know the statute existed until I gave him a copy.
I can understand how a non-lawyer like Simonds would not know that such a law existed but what is Doss’s excuse? She’s been the county attorney since before the statute was enacted. You would think that as some point in time she would have stumbled across the statute or heard about it at an attorney seminar or realized she did not have a code of ordinances to consult when she did legal research. I mean, it’s not like it’s her job or anything to make sure the county knows what the laws are, especially laws that the county has to comply with. That was sarcasm in case you didn’t recognize it.
We should be happy that the county is finally complying with the law. We should be less pleased over Ms. Doss’s performance.
That’s my view. What’s yours?
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