Committee eases ordinance reading rules and drops 10‑day physical posting requirement

The Sweet Home Charter Revision Committee voted to remove an onerous requirement that ordinances be "fully and distinctly read" at council meetings in every instance and agreed to eliminate a city code provision requiring a 10‑day physical posting after adoption.

Committee members and staff said the current charter language—written before online publication and packet distribution were common—regularly forces lengthy in‑meeting readings that add hours to special legislative sessions. The committee endorsed language allowing the first reading to be by title only if the vote to read it the first time is unanimous, and allowing the second reading to be done by title at the same meeting under the same unanimous condition; otherwise the matter continues across subsequent meetings under the committee’s proposed approach. The committee adopted a motion to delete the charter sentence that required physical posting at three or more public places for 10 days after passage, saying documents are already published online and are available on request.

Staff cautioned the committee that some planning‑code or state‑driven changes can require more careful public process; the committee kept the requirement that full text be available in the packet and on request but removed the physical posting burden that staff said routinely produced out‑of‑date or incomplete postings when documents were still being finalized.

The committee asked staff to add brief guidance in the administrative process (and to the website where practical) on how the public can find recently adopted ordinances—staff noted a planned website upgrade would improve search and display functions.

The motions passed by voice votes; roll‑call tallies were not captured in the transcript excerpt.