Because of its large size, the Ceres Municipal Code will be updated sections at a time.

“As you might suspect there’s hundreds of pages and pages in here and trying to tackle it all at once would be a pretty monumental task,” said City Manager Toby Wells who suggested reviewing the code one meeting per month until November.

He suggested grouping chapters together for discussion and assigned the following council meeting dates:

• Aug. 12 – Focusing on updating Chapter 1, Generation Provision; Chapter 2, Administration and Personnel; Chapter 3, Revenue and Finance; Chapter 4, Public Welfare, Safety and Health; Chapter 6, Health and Sanitation; Chapter 8, Animals.

• Sept. 23 – Focusing on updates to Chapter 9, Public Peace, Safety and Morals; Chapter 10, Vehicles and Traffic; and Chapter 19, Code Enforcement.

• Oct. 14 – Chapter 5, Business Licenses and Regulations; Chapter 12, Streets and Sidewalks; and Chapter 13, Water and Sewer.

• Nov. 12 – Chapter 15, Buildings and Construction; Chapter 16, Benefit Assessment Districts; and Chapter 17, Subdivisions.

• December – Chapter 18, Zoning.  

Each grouping accounts for approximately 250 to 300 pages of the existing Municipal Code for review at each meeting.

“The base assumption … is that we start with a council discussion and the discussion item will have the municipal code as it exists today, a clean version, and also a red-line version of what our city attorney is recommended to change to update to current law and a number of those type of cleanup items, and anything staff recommends us to address,” Wells told the council.  The council would then direct staff and then it moves through the hearing and adoption process.

The Ceres Planning Commission will be asked to weigh in on the update efforts on Monday, Nov. 4 and Monday, Dec. 2. The City Council will also hold public hearings on Aug. 12, Sept. 9, Oct. 28, Nov. 25 and Jan. 13.

Changes would likely become effective 30 days after adoption.