City of American Canyon Legislative Drafting Manual.

The purpose of this guide is to provide a uniform style and thoughtful/necessary considerations for drafting City of American Canyon Municipal Codes and Ordinances. Our goal is to inform staff with little previous experience, and assist those who have had some experience collaborating with departments and the City Attorney's office.

Section 1. Division of Responsibilities.

(a) Department staff responsible for the ordinance should work with the attorney assigned to their department to complete the project. The department staff shall describe the goals of the project and explain the concepts to be incorporated into the ordinance. Generally, it will be the responsibility of the attorney to draft the ordinance.

(b) In any code amendment, the drafter shall take time to eliminate duplicative provisions in a particular chapter, article, section, or subsection.

(c) The drafter shall consider powers and duties of boards, commissions, or officers, as defined, and if new responsibility is proposed, appropriate amendment should be made.

(d) The City Clerk's Office is responsible for the final formatting of all ordinances and for the publication of ordinances, or ordinance summaries, as required by the city's charter.

Section 2. General Formatting Guidelines.

(a) Page layout.

(1) Top & Bottom margins at 1.0, Left & Right margins at 1.25

(2) Text is formatted to be justified.

(3) Font is Calibri at 12 pt.

(4) Line spacing shall be 1.0 and a blank line shall follow each paragraph.

(b) Grammar, Punctuation, Capitalization.

(1) "Title", "Chapter", "Article", and "Section" shall be capitalized. Subsection shall be lower-case.

(2) Capitalize "City Council" and "City" if referring to City of American Canyon; "Code" when referring to City of American Canyon Municipal Code; "County" when referring to Napa County; "State" when referring to the State of California; "Federal" when referring to the United States.

(3) Titles of Federal, State, or County codes and agencies shall be capitalized, such as Vehicle Code, Subdivision Map Act, or Board of Supervisors.

(4) Commas shall be used to separate all items in a series: "planes, trains, and automobiles"; "tax, fee, or assessment".

(5) Numbers from 1-99 will be written out: two (2), ninety-nine (99). Numbers over 99 are written as numbers such as 115. Spell out fractions like one-fourth but keep decimals as numbers like 3.25 or .015.

(6) Time of day will be: 11:30 p.m., 12 Noon, 1:15 a.m.

(7) Abbreviations should be avoided, type "square feet" not "sq. ft."

(c) Citations.

(1) All citations shall follow the California Style Manual Fourth Edition (http://www.sdap.org/downloads/Style-Manual.pdf). If this manual conflicts with the California Style Manual, this manual will control. The following may be used for City of American Canyon documents:

(A) City of American Canyon Municipal Code: "the City Code", or "the American Canyon Municipal Code", or "this Code" (as applicable).

(B) City of American Canyon Ordinance: "Ord. No. YYYY-XX" or "this Ordinance" (as applicable);

(d) Subsections.

(1) Titles.

(A) Titles are optional.

(B) Titles shall be sentence cased and end with a period or colon.

(C) Subsection text shall continue on the same line as the title.

(2) Numbered subsections. Numbered subsections shall have a first line indent of 0.5" and be numbered and left indented according to the following sequence:

(A) consecutive upper-case letters with left indent of 0";

(B) consecutive Arabic numerals with left indent of 0.5";

(C) consecutive lower-case letters with left indent of 1"; and

(D) consecutive lower-case Roman numerals with left indent of 1.5".

(E) consecutive upper-case letters with left indent of 2".

Where each number is of the format "(<para num>)" with a trailing space.

(3) Unnumbered subsections.

(A) Unnumbered subsections belonging to a section shall have a 0" left indent and a 0" first line indent.

(B) Unnumbered subsections belonging to a numbered subsection shall be indented to match the numbered subsection.

(4) Lists. When a series of subsections are to be construed together as a list, all except the last shall end with a semicolon. A conjunction, such as "or" or "and" shall be placed after the semicolon of the next-to-last subsection. The last subsection shall end with a period.

Section 3. Code guidelines.

(a) Titles.

(1) Titles shall be numbered with sequential Arabic numerals: "Title <title num>".

(2) An upper-case title is required without a trailing period.

(3) Title num and title shall be centered and bold.

(b) Chapters.

(1) Chapters shall be numbered with two zero-padded sequential Arabic numerals: "Chapter <title num>.<chapter num>".

(2) An upper case title is required without a trailing period.

(3) Chapter num and title shall be centered and bold.

(4) Chapters shall not include a table of contents.

(c) Articles.

(1) Articles shall be numbered with an upper case Roman numeral "Article <article num>".

(2) A title case title is required without a trailing period.

(3) Article num and title shall be bold.

(4) Article num and title shall be on the same line: "Article I. Organization of City for Emergency Response".

(d) Sections.

(1) Sections shall be numbered with three zero-padded Arabic numerals in sequential multiples of ten: "<title num>.<chapter num>.<section num>".

(2) A title case title is required with a trailing period.

(3) Section num and title shall be bold.

(4) Section text shall start on a new line following the title.

Section 4. Ordinance guidelines.

(a) Banner and Title.

(1) The banner and title shall be in the following form:

"ORDINANCE NO. YYYY-XX"

"<Title>"

(2) The title shall be in title-case and start with the following: "An Ordinance of the City Council of the City of American Canyon". This should be followed by an action (Amending, Adopting, Repealing) and a municipal code title, chapter, article or section number, then title in quotations. The title shall provide a succinct unbiased description of the contents of the ordinance.

(b) Recitals. Leading conjunctions shall be all-caps and bolded. The last recital shall begin as follows:

NOW, THEREFORE, THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF AMERICAN CANYON DOES HEREBY ORDAIN AS FOLLOWS:

(c) Sections.

(1) The section prefix shall be upper case and bold. Section numbers and trailing period shall be bold: "SECTION <section num>.".

(2) Titles.

(A) A section title is optional.

(B) Titles shall be sentence-case and end with a period or colon.

(C) Titles, including terminating punctuation shall be bold.

(3) Section num and title (if present) shall be bold.

(4) Text shall continue on same line as the section number and title (if present).

(5) Mandatory Sections. The following sections shall be included as the last four sections of every ordinance:

(A) CEQA

(B) Severability.

(C) Publication.

(D) Effective Date.

(E) The ordinance will contain Vote, Attest, and Signature Blocks as follows:

The foregoing Ordinance was introduced at a regular meeting of the City Council of the City of American Canyon, State of California, held on the <date> day of <month>, <year>, by the following vote:

AYES: XXX, YYY, and ZZZ

NOES: None

ABSTAIN: None

ABSENT:

The foregoing Ordinance was adopted at a regular meeting of the City Council of the City of American Canyon, State of California, held on the <date> day of <month>, <year>, by the following vote:

AYES: XXX, YYY, and ZZZ

NOES: None

ABSTAIN: None

ABSENT:

_____________________________

Leon Garcia, Mayor

(d) Amendatory language. Ordinances shall use the following language to effectuate amendments to the code:

(1) Chapter.

(A) Add: 'Chapter XX.YY of the City of American Canyon Municipal Code is added to Title XX as follows:'

(B) Repeal: 'Chapter XX.YY of the City of American Canyon Municipal Code is repealed.'

(C) Amend: Amendment of a Chapter in its entirety is prohibited. Instead create, amend, and repeal the appropriate sections. To amend a chapter title: 'The title of Chapter XX.YY of the City of American Canyon Municipal Code is amended as follows: "Chapter Title".'

(2) Section.

(A) Add: When inserting a section between two existing sections, the section should use the number closest to the midpoint between the numbers of the neighboring sections. 'Section XX.YY.ZZZ of the City of American Canyon Municipal Code is added to Chapter XX.YY as follows:'

(B) Repeal: 'Section XX.YY.ZZZ of the City of American Canyon Municipal Code is repealed.'

(C) Amend: 'Section XX.YY.ZZZ of the City of American Canyon Municipal Code is amended as follows:'

(3) Subsection.

(A) Add: 'Subsection (AA)(…) of Section XX.YY.ZZZ of the City of American Canyon Municipal Code is added to Section XX.YY.ZZZ(…) as follows:'

(B) Repeal: 'Subsection (AA)(…) of Section XX.YY.ZZZ of the City of American Canyon Municipal Code is repealed.'

(C) Amend: 'Subsection (AA)(…) of Section XX.YY.ZZZ of the City of American Canyon Municipal Code is amended as follows:'

(e) Amendment of existing code. When an existing section of the code that does not conform to this manual is amended, the section shall be amended in its entirety to bring it into conformance with this manual.