Your Municipal Code
When the Board of Mayor and Aldermen for the City of Franklin adopt new ordinances, these ordinances must then be incorporated into the City’s Municipal Code book. Once a year, typically in January, ordinances adopted throughout the year are reviewed and compiled by the Assistant City Recorder for Records, and sent to Municipal Technical Advisory Service (MTAS) for the annual code update service.
As background information for those of you not familiar with MTAS, it is an agency of The University of Tennessee’s Institute for Public Service providing technical assistance to various city governing bodies, mayors, city administrators, city recorders, and city department heads. Franklin city officials use MTAS services for many purposes and projects. With regard to the city’s Municipal Code, MTAS prepares the new pages for our Municipal Code book after merging the new ordinances with the old.
It is extremely important that the City Code be kept up-to-date as new ordinances are passed. Without proper maintenance of the Code it would be difficult to know which ordinances are new, correct, and in force. Also which ones have been changed, amended, or repealed.
As a comparison, ordinances are to a city what laws enacted by the legislature are to the state. The State of Tennessee does not have a uniform system for creating local municipal courts. Each private act (City of Franklin) and statutory charter has its own procedures for appointing a city judge and creating a city court. Under the general law charters: The mayor-aldermanic charter provides for the Board to appoint a city judge (T.C.A. § 6-4-301).
All Department Directors have been issued a copy of the City’s Municipal Code Book. This booklet provides information for everyone to view. Ask to see a copy and look through it to learn about the City Charter and your City government.
