Pennsylvania Statutes Title 16 P.S. Counties § 3508. Ordinances and resolutions

(a) The board of commissioners may adopt resolutions and ordinances prescribing the manner in which powers of the county shall be carried out and generally regulating the affairs of the county.

(b) The board of county commissioners may formulate and adopt ordinances, resolutions, rules and regulations, pertaining to the use of any property owned or used by the county and the conduct of persons in, on or about such county property, in order to preserve such property and to promote and preserve the public health, safety and welfare. The rules and regulations shall be published, promulgated and become effective in the same manner as other resolutions and ordinances of the county.

(b.1) All such proposed ordinances, unless otherwise provided by law, shall be published at least once in one newspaper of general circulation in the county not more than sixty (60) days nor less than seven (7) days prior to passage. Public notices of any proposed ordinance shall include either the full text thereof or the title and a brief summary prepared by the county solicitor setting forth all the provisions in reasonable detail and a reference to a place within the county where copies of the proposed ordinance may be examined. If the full text is not included a copy thereof shall be supplied to the same newspaper of general circulation in the county at the time the public notice is published. If the full text is not included an attested copy thereof shall be filed in the county law library. In the event substantial amendments are made in the proposed ordinance or resolution, upon enactment, the commissioners shall within ten (10) days re-advertise in one newspaper of general circulation in the county, a brief summary setting forth all the provisions in reasonable detail together with a summary of the amendments. Such ordinances shall not become effective until recorded in the ordinance book of the county. In any case in which maps, plans or drawings of any kind are adopted as part of an ordinance, the commissioners may, instead of publishing the same as part of the ordinance, refer in publishing the ordinance to the place where such maps, plans or drawings are on file and may be examined.

(c) All such resolutions, rules and regulations unless otherwise provided by law, shall be published at least once in one newspaper of general circulation in the county. Such resolutions, rules and regulations shall not become effective until ten days after the publication aforesaid. In lieu of publishing the resolutions, rules or regulations in their entirety, the county commissioners may publish the title or a summary thereof and the place where such resolutions, rules or regulations, together with such maps, plans or drawings which may be part thereof, are on file and may be examined.

(d) Any person violating any of the ordinances, resolutions, rules and regulations, formulated and adopted by the board of county commissioners pursuant to this section, shall, upon conviction thereof at a summary proceeding, be sentenced to pay such fine as may be prescribed in such ordinances, resolutions, rules and regulations by the county commissioners but not in excess of one hundred dollars ($100), to be paid to the use of the county, with costs of prosecution, or to be imprisoned in the county jail for not more than thirty (30) days, or both.

The board of county commissioners may also prescribe fines and penalties, not exceeding five hundred dollars ($500), for the violation of county ordinances, which fines and penalties may be collected by suit brought in the name of the county in like manner as debts of like amount may be sued for.