Opinion ID: 2072265
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: 40:49-1 `Ordinance' and `resolution' defined

Text: The term `ordinance' when used in this subtitle means and includes any act or regulation of the governing body of any municipality required to be reduced to writing and read at more than one meeting thereof and published. The term `resolution' when used in this subtitle means and includes any act or regulation of the governing body of any municipality required to be reduced to writing, but which may be finally passed at the meeting at which it is introduced. Those definitions are for the purposes of the statute in which they are found. But the present statute is also entitled, in part, An Act concerning municipalities   . Certainly an ordinance, in the accepted and ordinary use of that word, does not become such until it has been formally and finally passed. We are not at liberty to assume that with this clear distinction in our cases and in our statutes the Legislature would place the two words in close conjunction with an identical meaning. Section 1-21 is, by its terms, comprehensive not only of an ordinance passed under this statute but of an ordinance passed under any statute. It is conceivable that an ordinance might be required if a charter commission should, under paragraph (b) of its authority, recommend that the governing body petition the Legislature for a special charter and possibly also if a commission should make a recommendation under paragraph (d); and if that should transpire such an ordinance might well be considered as passed, using the terminology of the statute, for the adoption of another charter or form of government. It is likewise conceivable that a governing body would have occasion to pass an ordinance under such a statute, L. 1948, c. 199, N.J.S.A. 1:6-10, et seq., in petitioning the Legislature for the passage of a private, special or local law regulating the internal affairs of the municipality. Thus we have a field of potential action which makes the statutory language logical and significant. It is a cardinal rule of construction that statutes shall be so construed that if possible full force and effect shall be given to every sentence, clause and word thereof. Bogert v. Hackensack Water Company, 101 N.J.L. 518 ( E. & A. 1925). It is also to be said that a proceeding looking toward the creation of a charter commission, which is the subject matter of part A, is not a proceeding for the adoption of another charter or form of government, which is the controlling factor in section 1-21 of part B. A proceeding for the creation of a charter commission may ultimately but does not necessarily lead to a proposal for a change in the charter. The city's action, by whatever name called, has not come to that phase. It could be that a governing body, wishing to maintain the existing status and observing a popular effort making toward a new charter, would endeavor to stifle that movement by the hurried passage of a resolution for charter study which might lead somewhere or nowhere. It is plainly an objective of the statute that a ready response shall be made to a popular impulse for change. The wisdom of that fluid condition of municipal government is for the Legislature to determine. The Legislature has determined; and while it has clothed the governing body with authority to initiate a movement looking toward an applied study it has, in our opinion, given, in section 1-21, assurance that such authority shall not vitiate a popular movement toward a referendum election on a specific statutory charter. It is argued further that L. 1950, c. 212, a companion statute to chapter 210, providing in its section 2 that notwithstanding the provisions of any other general or special law no petition for submission of the question of adopting a new or different municipal charter or form of government may be filed and no referendum election be held while other proceedings are pending pursuant to any law or referendum act for the adoption of a municipal charter or part thereof or for incorporation thereunder, should be so construed as to place a further restraint upon such a procedure as we have been discussing under chapter 210. Chapter 212 is by its title an amendment to section 40:45-2 of the Revised Statutes, which is an act relating to elections, and a supplement to chapter 43 of Title 40 of the Revised Statutes, which relates to incorporation, annexation, consolidation and boundaries of municipalities. Its function is to coordinate chapter 210, and perhaps chapter 211, with our remaining statutory law. It does not, in our opinion, place any new or different restraint upon proceedings under chapter 210. Appellant's argument is embraced in three points, of which the first is that L. 1950, chapters 210, 211 and 212, by their history and general scheme, point to the correctness of appellant's contentions; the second, that the court below erred in denying defendant appellant's motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim; and the third, that the complaint is defective because of nonjoinder of indispensable parties plaintiff. We have dealt sufficiently with these several contentions except the last. The issue under the first count of the complaint is directed toward the clerk, solely, for the reason that it is his duty, without recourse to the governing body, to prepare for the referendum election upon the filing of a petition in accordance with section 1-21 of part B of the statute. If the city government had wished to be heard, it could have sought entry to the suit as a party. Rule 3:21. Any bearing of the point upon the second count has become moot because of the abandonment of that count. Defendant professes not to know how to proceed with an election. The general election law, especially R.S. 19:27-12, along with the directions in the statute under review, gives sufficient guidance. We conclude that the motion to dismiss the complaint was properly denied. The judgment below will be affirmed, with costs. For affirmance  Chief Justice VANDERBILT, and Justices CASE, OLIPHANT, WACHENFELD, BURLING and ACKERSON  6. For reversal  None.