The Rugby City Council returned to the subject of ordinances at its regular meeting on Monday, and members heard feedback from the city attorney regarding their approach.

The first ordinance would have the city adopt all of Title 39 of the North Dakota Century Code which relates to motor vehicles. City attorney Rachael Mickelson Hendrickson had researched the question after the last council meeting in April, and said other cities don’t adopt Title 39 as a whole as it governs areas outside the city’s jurisdiction like giving licenses and registering cars.

“The cities that have made the statement they’re adopting all of Title 39, they go through and pick out the exact sections they’ll be using. We can go forward with doing that if you want,” Mickelson Hendrickson said. “I would have to go through all of Title 39, verify we’re only adopting the sections that apply to us, so that in the future it would just go with the state when the state changes.”

Mickelson Hendrickson told the council members they had to decide if they wanted her to begin parsing the sections of Title 39 for the new ordinance, or adopt it in whole despite jurisdiction issues.

Council member Jennifer Zachmeier suggested going forward with the full adoption, while also including the phrase, “unless prohibited by North Dakota Century Code.” Zachmeier said she believed that phrasing would be sufficient as Rugby is under the Home Rule Charter.

However, Mickelson Hendrickson said the city had to be clear with the public what it is adopting.

“We can’t just say, ‘We’re adopting Title 39’ and we don’t tell them which sections we are adopting. We have to make it clear enough so that when the public looks at our ordinances or they come in to look at it, that they know exactly what the city’s ordinances are,” Mickelson Hendrickson said. “They don’t have a legal degree. They’re not going to be able to go through TItle 39 and know, ‘this applies to a city. This applies to a state.’ We would have to list all of those out, and then they can go look at the Century Code and know what the city has adopted.”

Council member Neil Lotvedt inquired if the public needs to know the exact sections the city has adopted, and Mickelson Hendrickson responded not only did the public need to know for the ordinance to be effective as it could be beaten in court if it is too vague. Zachmeier asked if the law prohibiting a Home Rule Charter from adopting a state law by reference, and Mickelson Hendrickson said she had never seen a city do it.

“When you read through the Home Rule Charter, it says we have the ability to adopt our own laws. It doesn’t say we have the ability to just say we’re going with state law when we aren’t being clear,” Mickelson Hendrickson said. “I’m not saying we can’t do what you’re proposing. We can, but we have to be clear about which sections we’re adopting.”

Mickelson Hendrickson cited Minot’s ordinance as an example of how the city should do it, but asked the council to approve the extra time it would take to complete the work. Mayor Frank LaRocque said Mickelson Hendrickson didn’t need to do the parsing herself, and suggested having Zachmeier, Chief of Police Scott Bommersbach and himself do the review to identify the exact sections.

“It’s broken down pretty easily where we can adopt it all. Like you said, we don’t have the authority to issue a driver’s license, so why would we want to adopt it?” LaRocque said.

Zachmeier asked to do a little more reading on it before a lot of work was put into it, but asked to move forward with repealing the existing ordinance to pave the way for the new one when it is ready. Mickelson Hendrickson said it would take her about two to three hours to do the work herself, but welcomed LaRocque’s plan to provide a list of the exact sections for her to approve.

The second ordinance discussed would have the city prosecute all state level Class B misdemeanors and traffic violations. Mickelson Hendrickson said she hadn’t found any other city that has done it before. She said she had similar concerns with this approach as with the Title 39 ordinance, as the city isn’t specifically laying out the elements of every Class B misdemeanor included in the Century Code.

“It’s easier for the police, because the police can say, ‘Oh I know what a Class B misdemeanor is at the state level, so I’m going to cite them under this section.’ But the public wouldn’t know exactly what the Class B misdemeanors the city is adopting are,” Mickelson Hendrickson said. “So that’s why every single city outlines their Class B misdemeanors.”

Mickelson Hendrickson said she struggled with adopting it with a single paragraph, and the police could provide a list of specific misdemeanors to lay out in the ordinance. She suggested using a rewrite she had done for the City of Rolla’s ordinances as a baseline for Rugby’s. LaRocque confirmed with Bommersbach there were just a few Class B misdemeanors missing from the ordinances. Mickelson Hendrickson suggested police cite misdemeanors on the district level until the ordinance is in place to bring the cases into city court.

The council decided to revisit the topic at the first June council meeting before a first reading is held to allow time for the suggested changes.

Highway 3 construction

LaRocque raised a public safety issue during the meeting, and requested Bommersbach for more patrol efforts on side streets due to the ongoing road reconstruction on N.D. Highway 3 in town.

Bommersbach said he had updated his officers on the city’s truck ordinance, and directed them to stop and cite any trucks that were not transporting local deliveries.

Council member Jon Nelson enquired if there was signage directing trucks not transporting local deliveries to take an alternative route, but LaRocque said the signage was being ignored.

“They don’t read them. They’re day dreaming. Jennifer said today she saw an anhydrous truck going right through Main (Street),” LaRocque said. “We need you guys patroling rather than spending so much time at the LEC. Even if it’s just sitting there. We’re getting reports like going by Schneider’s shop down bypassing it. I can tell you from my street, they think it’s a race track.”

Bommersbach said his staff have been patroling more to stop and investigate any questionable trucks.

Lotvedt inquired if there was enough signage to cover all the entrances into town, and LaRocque confirmed their locations but said he felt they were being ignored.

The council discussed some gaps in the sign placement on the south and west of Rugby, and possibly asking the state to put bright orange flags on them to increase visibility.

“It’s early in the project so we’re just dealing with the pain right now, and trying to minimize it. All we can do is issue citations and the word will get out,” LaRocque said.