Our municipal code exists to protect the rights of individuals, to establish boundaries of municipal government operation, and to promote the health, safety and welfare of residents. In situations where ordinances are open to interpretation, city council members are entrusted by residents to show wisdom in determining the most prudent course of action.
The City Council must understand and follow the letter and intent of our code -- rather than to defer to precedents, the interpretations of others, or to apply a 'liberal interpretation' of the code (which adds unwritten stipulations or qualifications to the code, or neglects aspects of it). Only once the proposed action complies with the code as written, should council address the merits of the issue at hand.
City Council sometimes revisits ordinances in response to actions or proposals; opponents claim that the City Council is modifying the code to serve the interests of a few. While the ordinance change process could be abused in this manner, I also appreciate that the code doesn't anticipate every situation. A few obsolete ordinances do exist (like a prohibition on tying a horse to a telegraph pole), but unless the ordinance is unfair, injurious or unconstitutional, the most practical time to revisit an obsolete ordinance is often when a real-world situation requires it. This doesn't mean re-writing an ordinance to benefit just a few, but instead it should result in bringing our code up-to-date with current societal standards and expectations.