Charter and Legislation

Charter

Georgia cities and towns are actually considered the same legal entity, going under the name of a “municipal corporation.” These municipal corporations are created by a charter through a legislative act of the Georgia General Assembly. The charter establishes the government structure of the city and defines boundaries, specific powers, functions, essential procedures and legal control. While the city charter may grant a city the authority to impose, regulate, tax or grant other powers, cities may need to adopt ordinances that outline additional powers in areas where the charter grants the city authority to do so.

The City of South Fulton's charter was approved as House Bill 514 by the Georgia General Assembly in April 26, 2016 and adopted by the city council as Ordinance 2017-001 on May 1, 2017.

South Fulton's Charter Commission reviewed the document in 2022 under the state requirement that charters by reviewed and updated five years from the adoption date.

Ordinances and Resolutions

Cities refer to the collection of laws that have been passed as the City Code of Ordinances, or simply city code. The City of South Fulton has entrusted private vendor MuniCode to house its code of ordinances online. The company offers an advanced online code hosting portal that is used by more than 4,100 towns and cities across the nation . The software provides industry-leading search engine functionality to make it easy for residents to find and comply with the code of ordinances.

An individual law, statute or regulation passed by a city is referred to as an ordinance. A resolution is a formal expression of the opinion, will, or intent of a municipal council.  A resolution deals with matters of a special or temporary character, generally stating a position or policy of a city. You can access all city ordinances and resolutions by the years they were approved.

Whereas an ordinance is a legislative act and prescribes some permanent rule of conduct or government to continue in force until the ordinance is amended or repealed, a resolution is an expression of opinion or mind or policy concerning some particular item of business coming before the city council.