How is a piece of legislation identified, and what do the prefixes mean?
All legislation being considered by the Council is assigned a reference number. Take for example the Abandoned/Inoperable Vehicle bill, O-03-88. The reference number to this bill is actually made up of 3 components. First, the legislation always begins with a letter. In the case of the Abandoned/Inoperable Vehicle bill, the first section of the reference number is the letter “O”. This signifies that this bill is an Ordinance. The second portion of the reference number is the last two digits of the year in which the legislation was introduced. In the example cited above the bill was introduced in 2003. Finally, the last series of numbers in a bill is a numerical representation of the number of types of bills introduced for that year. In simple terms, the Abandoned/Inoperable Vehicle bill was the 88th ordinance introduced in 2003. Go to What type of legislation does the City Council have the power to enact? to see a list of prefixes.
