Code book update more than Weston budgeted for

The City of Weston will update its ordinance book, after several years of deferment, with a larger-than-expected price tag. The City contracts with Missouri-based Sullivan Publications, one of very few companies that offer ordinance codification services. Sullivan compiles state and municipal ordinances into printed codebooks and in electronic form in a searchable database available to both City staff and the general public through the Weston Police website at westonmo.us/police. While the City budgeted $1,500 this year to update the code books, the quote from Sullivan came in at $3,000 because the City hadn’t performed an extensive update to the code for six years. City Clerk Kim Kirby said the deferment hadn’t been intentional — the project had just been placed on the back burner several times — but the time was due for an update. At the regular Board of Aldermen meeting Monday evening, Alderman Joyce Burch said she was uncomfortable with doubling the expenditure and suggested the City see how much could be updated with the budgeted $1,500. “Who would make the decision then on which ordinances we would include and which we wouldn’t?” said Mayor CR Carter. “We can’t pick and choose which ones to include.” Kirby concurred that cherry-picking ordinances for inclusion would cause more confusion. Burch suggested doing a three-year update with the $1,500 and completing the update next year. Kirby said the City would continually fall further behind as new ordinances were passed every year — code books by their nature are a project that is never complete or completely up-to-date, though yearly updates would keep the City more on top of the process. “If you want to do that — to not approve the total amount for the update — let me readjust line items in the budget,” Kirby said, offering to take the difference from the City’s office supply fund or from another miscellaneous budget item so the project could be completed. “They (Sullivan) have all the code updates right now, they’re ready to go and just waiting for the go-ahead.”