A committee of people that are concerned about Selma’s historic districts is trying to beef up the city’s historical ordinance and give it more teeth.

The Ad-Hoc Committee for restoring historic ordinances met Thursday at Selma City Hall to discuss updating it. The last time the ordinance was updated was more than 10 years ago in March 2003.

Councilman Greg Bjelke, who led the meeting, said the city wants to update the ordinance to give downtown and the historical districts a bit of a facelift and make them more attractive sights to see for people visiting the Queen City.

“Tourism is so big, and people are coming to Selma left and right wanting to see our town,” Bjelke said. “I hate to say it, but we’ve got some ragged edges. We do, and we’ve got to clean up.”

One of the main concerns the committee had was the vagueness of the current ordinance compared to the original ordinance, which was put into place in 1979.

“It is vague on who is enforcing it, it is vague in a lot of areas like the discussion here. Are we doing billboards, or are we doing banners? Is it going to be retro,” Bjelke said.

“There are a lot of areas that are vague, and we want to clear up from the old ordinance to the new one.”

The 1979 ordinance defined who would enforce the ordinance and what the penalties would be, while the 2003 ordinance does not.

The 1979 ordinance empowered the building inspector to enforce the law, and listed penalties of no less than $100 and no more than $500.

“Violations of any provisions of this ordinance shall be punished in the same manner as provided punishment of violations of other valid-enacted ordinance of the city, state and federal laws,” the 2003 ordinance read.”

Committee members said the wording does not define punishments for not abiding by the ordinance, so it is difficult to enforce the ordinance.

“We want to get a lot more done in preserving our downtown, and we need more penalties and timelines,” Bjelke said during the meeting. “We need to crank down.”

Bjelke said updating the ordinance, which requires homeowners and business owners of historic properties to maintain their historic integrity, will benefit everyone in the city.

“Legally, it is going to protect us and help us be consistent. And then ultimately, we’ll just be able to clean up the town so there is no confusion about who is doing it and why we’re doing it,” Bjelke said.

“We just want to make things clear and we’re going to be consistent.”

Bjelke said cleaning up downtown and making the buildings look like they once did will make Selma more attractive to both tourists and businesses looking to make a move.

“If you’re coming in and bringing industry in this town, and you pull into Selma and it is a great little town with flowers and buildings, they might say, ‘By God, I want to bring my industry here. I want to put my business here.’” Bjelke said.

“And it is quite the opposite if it’s not, so it is a win-win for everybody. It is going to benefit everyone.”

Bjelke said a cleaner, well-preserved city can also be a crime deterrent.

While no final decision was made Thursday night, Bjelke said the committee will meet several times.