County attorney outlines plan to recodify county code and move it online

Ben Stanley of the county attorney’s office told the Utah County Commission that the office plans to migrate the county code into a muni‑code/Unicode online platform to make the code more searchable and accessible to the public. Stanley said the project is intended as a recodification — largely technical and non‑substantive changes — that will consolidate the code’s existing 31 titles into about 10 and standardize references to the “Board of County Commissioners.”

Stanley said the migration will correct decades‑old references where state law has changed, update gender‑neutral language and remove provisions that are clearly outdated and unsupported by county departments. He described the work as a multi‑phase process: the first phase is to migrate materials into the new platform for better public search and navigation, and later phases would break long sections into smaller subsections and surface larger substantive policy questions for full public vetting.

Several commissioners said they supported the improved public access but pressed for a timeline and mechanisms to flag substantive items for early review. Stanley said staff have been migrating content and that an ordinance to approve the recodification and platform switch could be placed on an agenda in about two weeks; he emphasized that the office does not intend to use the migration to preempt substantive policy changes, which would be brought back for separate discussion.

Commissioners asked whether the new code would be embedded on the county’s primary website and whether the online tool will be searchable; Stanley confirmed the plan is to embed it on the county site and to enable full‑text search. He said the public will be informed the product is a work in progress.