City Ordinances Nullified by Printing Error
A procedural blunder leaves Aberdeen's recent city ordinances legally unenforceable.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
It is a pretty kettle of fish that the city of Aberdeen has been placed in by the gang that runs things in city affairs. It appears that the council and the city printer have blundered, and it will cost the city dear, for there has not been a valid publication of any city ordinance, notice or legal publication since the advent of the official organ. The law states that legal notices must be published on the day of each week in which such newspaper is published. As the official organ has not once appeared on its publication day, every ordinance or notice of any kind it has published is illegal. As a result, ordinances including the liquor license reduction, the general license ordinance, the re-assessment of Terrace avenue, and the employment of special night watchmen are all invalid. The most serious effect is the invalidation of the Terrace avenue re-assessment, allowing those who owe the city for street improvements to continue to refuse to pay.
“Not only has the city suffered but every individual who has had a legal notice, issued out of a court of law... published in that sheet has also suffered, for every one of them are illegal.”
This 1894 report on bureaucratic incompetence and the legal fallout of a failed municipal notice process highlights how foundational the 'public record' is to city power. Today, public notices have moved from local broadsheets to digital portals, but the underlying anxiety—that a single procedural error can derail entire civic projects—remains a constant stressor in municipal government.
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