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Ordinance Information Pooling

Ordinance Information Pooling

Municipal Research & Services Center Library
2601 Fourth Ave, Suite 800
Seattle, WA 98121-1280

The Municipal Research & Services Center's (MRSC) library maintains a collection or "pool" of ordinances and municipal codes for your use. The 1995 legislature recognized MRSC's role in collecting and distributing municipal ordinances by formalizing the concept of ordinance pooling in the state statutes. The purpose of the new legislation "is to provide a means whereby all cities and towns may obtain, through a single source, information regarding ordinances of other cities and towns that may be of assistance to them in enacting appropriate local legislation." The legislation broadens the information base by seeking participation from all cities and towns and it changes the existing procedure for code cities.

Earlier legislation directed code cities to send three copies of ordinances of general application to the Association of Washington Cities (AWC). When that legislation was passed in 1969, MRSC and AWC shared a central library at AWC's offices in Seattle. Since AWC's move to Olympia in the early 1980s, AWC has forwarded the ordinances to MRSC for processing. The new law directs that the clerk of every city and town is to provide to the Municipal Research Council or its designee (MRSC), promptly after adoption, a copy of each of its regulatory ordinances and other ordinances as may be described in lists promulgated by the Council or its designee.

For the city clerks who already send ordinances directly to MRSC, there is no change. For cities who send three copies to AWC, only one copy is needed and ordinances now should be sent directly to the MRSC library. For those cities and towns who do not currently send copies, we would like you to send MRSC your ordinances of general application. These include regulatory provisions, policies, fee changes, and other items that would be helpful to other municipalities. Ordinances that take individual actions such as street vacations and rezones do not need to be sent. Routine LID's and annexations are of lesser interest. Do send copies that relate to major annexations or to unique LID's, such as those for BIA's. See the list below.

Each ordinance received by MRSC is assigned a subject code and is filed in one of the thirty-five hundred subject files housed in MRSC's library. Ordinances of general interest are indexed with short summaries in the ordinance summary database which can be searched on MRSC's home page. Where MRSC has copies in electronic form, the ordinances are linked in the database and can be viewed while in the database. The ordinances in the pool are available to MRSC consultants when researching a question for you, and you may search the database yourself and request copies if not available electronically.

Ultimately, the desire is to have a good selection of sample ordinances available in full text on MRSC's Internet site. Using MRSC's home page as a means of delivery, cities and towns can have immediate access to desired information, and can utilize the text more efficiently. Currently a number of documents are available and can be downloaded from MRSC's Web site (http://www.mrsc.org/ords/ords.aspx). Ordinances can be sent to MRSC via E-mail on the Internet (mrsc@mrsc.org) as an attachment or mailed as a file on a floppy disk. We are encouraging you to consider this process in lieu of photocopying and mailing paper copies of ordinances to MRSC.

The MRSC Library would like to receive ordinances related to the following areas:

  • Board and commissions - creating, rules, and regulations
  • Building regulations
  • Business regulations - policies, requirements, fees
  • Departments and positions - creating, special procedures for, powers and duties
  • Health and sanitation related regulations and policies including nuisances
  • Land use and planning policies and regulations - zoning, comprehensive planning, criteria for development, sensitive areas, shorelines, stream protection
  • Licensing and permit regulations other than business and buildings cited above
  • Policies such as investment polices, personnel policies
  • Public safety - items related to fire services, police services
  • Public ways - streets, sidewalks, etc. regulations and policies. Exclude items where a person applies for a special permit, or requests a street vacation
  • Traffic and parking - policies and regulations that are general in nature
  • Utilities - regulations, policies, fees