Township of Cheltenham, PA Ordinances

Unless otherwise provided, the Board may consider for enactment only such proposed ordinances as shall have been posted and advertised in the following manner:

(1)

The advertisement of a proposed ordinance shall contain the title and a synopsis of the proposed ordinance and shall designate the date and place of the meeting where it will be considered by the Board for enactment. Such advertisement shall appear in a newspaper of general circulation in the township not more than thirty (30) days nor fewer than six (6) days prior to the meeting at which the ordinance is to be considered for enactment.

(2)

The proposed ordinance, in substantially the form in which it will be considered by the Board for enactment, shall be posted prominently in the Township Building for a period of at least the forty-eight (48) hours immediately prior to the meeting at which the proposed ordinance will be considered for enactment.

At the meeting noticed in the advertisement, or at any subsequent meeting to which the matter is referred by official action of the Board at the advertised meeting, the Board may enact the ordinance.

The Board may amend a proposed ordinance before final adoption, but if an amendment makes any significant substantive change from the proposed ordinance as originally advertised and posted, no final action may be taken until the proposed amended ordinance has again been advertised and posted in accordance with § C501A.

Every ordinance shall contain the date of its enactment, and its enactment shall be verified by the signature of the presiding officer of the meeting at which final action was taken. The Official Seal of the township shall be affixed to the original copy of each ordinance. However, failure to affix the Official Seal shall not in any way invalidate an otherwise valid ordinance.

No ordinance shall contain more than one (1) subject which shall be clearly expressed in its title. The enacting clause shall be: "The Board of Commissioners of the Township of Cheltenham hereby ordains...." In its proposed form, any ordinance which repeals or amends an existing ordinance shall set out in full the ordinance portion to be repealed or amended and shall indicate matter to be omitted by enclosing it in brackets or by strike-out type and shall indicate new matter by underscoring or italics.

The Board may adopt any standard code of technical regulations by adopting an ordinance incorporating said standard code and by attaching a copy thereof to the ordinance as enacted. The details of such standard codes need not be advertised but copies of such codes shall be available at the office of the township for public inspection. The township shall also have the responsibility of assuring that copies of such codes are available for purchase at a reasonable charge. Adoption of standard codes shall be in accordance with the procedures set forth in this section.

Promptly after enactment and in any event within thirty (30) days thereafter, all ordinances shall be advertised in a newspaper of general circulation in the township. The title of an ordinance and a synopsis will constitute sufficient advertisement. The advertisement shall clearly indicate the location and the hours that such ordinance can be inspected and the procedure whereby a copy of the ordinance can be obtained.

The effective date of an ordinance shall be ten (10) days following the advertisement date except where a later date is specified in the ordinance or unless otherwise provided.

Any appeal otherwise provided by law from the passage of any township ordinance must be taken, if at all, within thirty (30) days from the effective date of such ordinance. Upon such appeal, the court may require the filing of a bond with sufficient security for the payment of costs by any person aggrieved.

	Commentary: Under this Charter, an ordinance may not be considered by the Board prior to six (6) days after advertisement, except for emergencies. This is a new provision, as is the requirement of posting and having a copy of the proposed ordinance available for inspection. At present, the Township Code[1] does not require any advertisement before an ordinance is passed. A First Class Township could literally pass an ordinance (except for zoning) upon its initial consideration, and the first time the public would hear about it could be when it was advertised after passage. That is not true today for Second Class Townships, where prior advertisement of proposed ordinances is required. Furthermore, the Municipalities Planning Code[2] now requires prior advertisement and public hearing before passage of any zoning ordinance. Under this Charter, the public will have the right to know what ordinances are being considered for passage and the right to make its views known to the Board before passage.

	The Charter does not specify who must order the advertisement, only that it must be placed. The Board may adopt the practice of ordering advertisements itself, or permitting them to be ordered by committees, their chairmen, Commissioners, the Township Manager or other township personnel.

	At present, the Commission hears from the public more fully at the committee level, although it sometimes entertains public discussion at Board meetings. However, there is no formal procedure to notify the public as to what will be considered by a committee. Under Charter §§ C1406 and C501, the Board has an option. It can advertise that a committee will be considering a proposed ordinance, and, if a quorum of the Board is present at the committee meeting, the Board will then not be required to hear again from the public at the subsequent Board meeting. Or it can have the committee consider and recommend an ordinance without such advertisement but then the public must be heard at the Board meeting. In either event, the fact that the Board will be subsequently considering the proposed ordinance must be advertised.

	If a committee of the Board orders an advertisement of an ordinance so as to permit Board consideration and if the committee desires to avoid the necessity of hearing from the public at the Board meeting, the effect of §§ C1406 and C501 would be to require the committee to advertise both its meeting at which the public will be heard and the meeting of the Board at which the ordinance will be considered for enactment; this could be done either in one (1) advertisement or two (2). If, on the other hand, the committee is satisfied that the public should be heard by the Board at its meeting before enactment, it is not required to hold another committee meeting to hear the public.

	Significant substantive change requires readvertisement and a second consideration by the Board only when an amendment to the proposed ordinance so changes its purpose and effect that those persons who would have been affected and might have desired to make their views known to the Board or its committee would not have been placed on notice by the language or advertisement of the proposed ordinance in its prior form. Although an ordinance amending or repealing an existing ordinance will contain, in its proposed form, brackets or underlining designating the change as required in § C501E, the ordinance in final form would not be required to include such emphasis or reference to deleted material.

	The GSC does not believe that these requirements for public notification significantly slow down the ordinance procedures or interfere with the Board in its activities. Such limitations as they may place on the Board are more than outweighed by the gain in public awareness of what the Board is proposing to do.

	With respect to standard Codes adopted by the Board, the township must have a copy available for inspection. It need not have copies available for purchase if it can direct interested parties to a source where such codes are available.

	The ordinance procedures of this section, where inconsistent, do not apply to budget procedures (see § C1205G) or to emergency ordinances.

[1]

Editor's Note: See 53 P.S. § 56502.

[2]

Editor's Note: See 53 P.S. § 10101 et seq.

To meet a public emergency affecting life, health, property or the public peace, the Board may adopt one (1) or more emergency ordinances as may be required. An emergency ordinance shall be clearly so designated and shall contain a declaration of the emergency in clear and specific terms.

Emergency ordinances shall take effect immediately upon enactment and shall expire no more than sixty-one (61) days from the date of enactment; nothing, however, shall prevent a single extension of the emergency ordinance for not more than thirty (30) days should the emergency still exist.

The Board may waive by emergency ordinance the requirement for competitive bidding for such services and materials as may be required to deal with the emergency situation.

Emergency ordinances shall not be subject to the general ordinance requirements provided in § C501, except Subsections D, E and I thereof.

Emergency ordinances shall be advertised as soon as possible after the date of enactment.

Commentary: Section C505 provides ample authority to deal with an emergency, but there must, in fact, be a described emergency. All of the § C501 prepassage formalities are waived, although the ordinance must be in requisite form and be advertised after passage. The twenty-four-hour written notice of meeting requirement of § C402B might not apply; that section requires in emergencies only such notice as it is possible to give. An emergency ordinance is limited to sixty-one (61) days maximum, with a maximum thirty-day extension, which should give the Commissioners adequate time to pass an ordinance by normal procedures. Of course, a regular ordinance could be self-limiting to expire at the end of a particular condition, so that it need not necessarily ordain a permanent change.

	Commentary: Present law does not require codification, although Township Code Section 1502[1] governs procedures if it is done. There is no present requirement that citizens may obtain copies of an ordinance or a class of ordinances.

	The Township Solicitor has completed what is probably the codification this section requires, and it may be adopted by the Board after its review. It is the anticipation of the GSC that the Board will use a loose-leaf or similar system so that additions or deletions may be easily inserted where required.