Questions prompt delay of Shelby legislation
By David Jacobs
Questions raised by City Councilman Charles Roub led the Shelby City Council to unanimously postpone proposed legislation.
Ordinance 9-2025 would authorize the editing and inclusion of certain ordinances into the city’s official code, adopt new legal material, and repeal conflicting laws. The legislation also included a motion to suspend the three-reading rule, a move that would have enabled passage under emergency status.
During the May 5 session, Roub questioned whether all of the ordinances involved "had been reviewed by their respective departments and verified that the language is correct?"
Further discussion showed uncertainty over whether those reviews had been completed.
Shelby Councilman Nathan Martin asked about the proposed emergency passage.
“Is, is there a reason we do this by emergency?" he said. "I know we wanted to get it done as soon as possible. I get that point, but is there a reason we don't do it with multiple readings and then do an emergency on the last one it can go in effect right away?"
Shelby Mayor Steve Schag spoke about concerns involving outdated information, which could potentially confuse the public.
“Sometimes when we pass some, especially on zoning and so forth, and someone goes to our website and they're reading old ordinances instead of a new version of those ordinances,” Schag said.
Martin indicated that while emergency procedures had been used before, he had further questions on its use in this case.
“I know the last time we did this, we did it because there was a mistake that needed to be fixed rather quickly on the website, so we went to emergency to do it,” he said. “But I don't believe reading language, any of these fall into that category — something that needs to be fixed right away.”
Roub, retired Shelby police chief, raised specific concerns about sections of the ordinance typically handled by the police department.
“There appears to be several, I would guess they are parking ordinances, traffic ordinances in the 452 section,” he said, asking whether the police chief had reviewed those "to ensure that the language is correct."
“It’s happened in the past that ordinances have gone into the book, so to speak, when the language wasn’t exactly the same as what council had approved," Councilman Roub said. "I'm just trying to avoid that type of situation. One or two words can change the meaning of an ordinance a lot.”
Shelby Police Chief Lance Combs asked for clarification on the specifics involved.
Councilman Roub said: “Well, I’m looking at this ordinance here. It is 452 sections, 452.01 and on through. There’s also numerous other ordinances, a number of ordinances that (we) have in the past had the opportunity to review those just to make sure that those are correct.”
To move forward, Councilman Martin proposed a delay.
“Why don't we, if it would please everybody involved, table this motion and then we move to postpone this ordinance until next meeting,” he said. “Then, you mayor, can go to everybody, just get signed off that people are comfortable with the language, and then bring that to us and then we can readdress this next council meeting.”
“I don't think this is anything that's going to be life-shattering in the next two weeks. So if that would please everybody, I think that's a fair compromise on this,” Martin said.
“I would, mayor, move to table this motion and postpone Ordinance Number 9-2025 to the next council meeting,” he added.
The motion was seconded by Roub and passed unanimously, 5–0 with the votes of Roub, Martin and council members Steve McLaughlin, Eric Cutlip and Derrin Roberts.
The legislation is expected to return for reconsideration later in May, following further departmental verification of the ordinance language.
