All words and phrases shall be construed and understood according to the common and approved use of the language, but technical words and phrases and any others that may have acquired a peculiar and appropriate meaning in the law shall be construed and understood according to their peculiar and appropriate meaning.
A. In this code, unless the context or a more specific definition requires otherwise, the following terms shall have the following meanings:
1. “Code” means the town code of the town of Marana, Arizona, including those portions codified in this volume, those portions codified separately, and those separate codes and provisions incorporated by reference.
2. “Council” means the town council of the town of Marana.
3. “County” means Pima County, Arizona.
4. “Day” is the period of time between midnight and the following midnight.
5. ”Fire chief” means the fire chief of the fire department or a person duly authorized to act on his or her behalf. For geographic areas not located within the boundaries of a fire district and for any provision or regulation that does not apply to a particular geographic area, “fire chief” means the town’s chief building official or his or her designee.
6. “Fire department” means the fire district that has jurisdiction over the geographic area in question.
7. “Mayor” means the mayor of the town of Marana.
8. “Month” means a calendar month.
9. “Oath” includes an affirmation in all cases in which, by law, an affirmation may be substituted for an oath, and in those cases the words “swear” and “sworn” shall be equivalent to the words “affirm” and “affirmed.”
10. “Owner” includes any whole or part owner, joint owner, tenant in common, joint tenant or lessee.
11. “Person” means any natural person or any association, firm, individual, partnership, joint stock company, joint venture, trust, corporation, limited liability company, society, syndicate, business or other legally recognized entity, private or public, whether for-profit or not-for-profit.
12. “Personal property” includes every type of property except real property.
13. “Preceding” and “following” mean next before and next after, respectively.
14. “Property” includes real property and personal property.
15. “Real property” means lands, tenements and hereditaments.
16. “Section” means section, subsection, or provision.
17. “Shall” is mandatory and “may” is permissive.
18. “Shall have been” includes past and present and future cases.
19. “Signature” includes a mark when the signer cannot write, the signer’s name being written near the mark by a witness who writes his or her own name near the signer’s name, but a signature by mark may be acknowledged or may serve as a signature to a sworn statement only when witnessed by two people who sign their own names to the document.
20. “State” means the state of Arizona.
21. “Town” means the town of Marana, Pima County, Arizona. “In the town” or “within the town” mean and include all territory over which the town has jurisdiction for the exercise of its police powers or other regulatory powers as authorized by statute.
22. “Week” means seven consecutive days.
23. “Writing” means any form of recorded message capable of comprehension by ordinary visual means.
24. “Year” means a calendar year.
B. In this code, unless the context requires otherwise, the following rules of interpretation shall apply:
1. When an act is required to be done which may by law as well be done by an agent as by the principal, the requirements shall be construed to include all acts by an authorized agent.
2. Whenever this code refers to a department, board, commission, committee, office, officer or employee, it shall mean a department, board, commission, committee, office, officer or employee of the town of Marana unless the context requires otherwise.
3. Words of the masculine gender include the feminine, words in the singular include the plural and words in the plural include the singular.
4. Words purporting to give joint authority to a group of three or more town officers or other persons shall be construed as giving the authority to a majority of those officers or other persons unless the law giving the authority expressly declares otherwise.
5. The present tense includes the past and future tenses, and the future includes the present.
6. The time within which an act is to be done as provided in this code or in any order issued pursuant to any ordinance, when expressed in days, shall be computed by excluding the first day and including the last, except that if the last day is a Saturday, Sunday or holiday it shall be excluded, and when the time within which an act is to be done is expressed in hours, the whole of Saturday, Sunday or a holiday, from midnight to midnight, shall be excluded.
7. A reasonable time means the amount of time needed for prompt performance.
8. Whenever any notice, report, statement or record is required or authorized, it shall be made in writing in the English language.
Section 1-3-2 was rewritten by Ordinance 2005.22, which added “and interpretation” to the title, split the provisions into definitions and rules of interpretation, simplified the language, deleted definitions of words not used in the code, and added definitions of “fire chief” and “fire department”
The definitions of fire chief and fire department were amended by Ordinance 2016.017