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Council considers ordinance update to ban metal detectors at archaeological sites
Summary
Parks and historic‑preservation staff proposed updating a local ordinance to explicitly prohibit use of metal detectors to dig for artifacts on protected sites while preserving paths for authorized archaeological work; staff said the prior ordinance omitted a reference to metal detectors.
A parks/historic staff speaker explained the proposed ordinance change that would add metal detectors to an existing prohibition against digging for artifacts on specified historic properties. The presenter said a prior ordinance drafted by the city's law firm prohibited unauthorized digging but had not explicitly named metal detectors; the proposed change closes that gap while preserving a path for legitimate archaeological work that would come before the historic commission.
“We put an ordinance... that prohibited that digging up artifacts. What it failed to do was it failed to identify metal detectors as part of that digging up,” the parks/historic speaker said, explaining that the update would help preserve archeological resources while allowing approved digs to proceed through commission review. Council members discussed routing any legitimate archaeological requests through the historic commission and reiterated the need to preserve known sites from casual disturbance.
