In addition, these municipal code book locations should be able to surface within the Top 5 of many major search engines, but they do not in most cases. Without additional exploration and advancement of SEO-related design standards for these types of government-owned assets, indexes such as The 2012 Illinois Municipal Code Book Index will always have a role in direct-connecting searchers to an actual municipal code books being provided in an online manner.
When was the last time you tried to look at your local book of laws? I’m not asking when was the last time you read it. I’m talking about actually looking at the physical cover of the book. It’s been a few months for me and it was only in an online format, but within a matter of 15 minutes I was able to match up a local ordinance with a State statute in a municipality that previously would not allow anyone to review the local laws without formal oversight from government officials.
I didn’t need anyone sitting in front of me while I tried to match up the numbers (especially that of government) and thankfully I didn’t have to travel any farther than the local library to acquire clarity in connection with mandatory seat belt laws in the State of Illinois. Because I was able to find the match-up, I was then able to better understand the Justice System process being enacted, which allowed an individual to remain absent of a lawyer and still effectively provide defense towards the allegation. Irrelevant of the outcome, it is the idea that a United States citizen is nothing short of a fool to represent themselves in a courtroom, with mental health matrixes not that far behind to support such a position.
But just how foolish is it for government officials to continue to dismiss the built-in value of building the production rate of municipal code books as a direct income stream to a municipality? There needs to be no middle man taking in hundreds of dollars to host one book, especially when a FOIA request is excessive and entirely unnecessary in connection with a book of laws, especially when digital distribution of a book of any format can be as simple as emailing a .pdf file…let alone having one central index that allows for immediate downloading of the document – FOR FREE! Some already do this and applause to them. It’s not enough to help raise the credit rating of the State of Illinois.
Click here to read Part I
Click here to read Part III
