June 13, 2011

There were 3 posts published on June 13, 2011 (this is page 1 of 1).

CACs and the Open Meetings Law

A question came up during last month’s RCAC meeting, regarding the legal standing of CACs with regard to the city. RCAC Chair Will Allen got an opinion from Raleigh City Attorney Tom McCormick. Will says:

Tom advises that the CAC is an organization created by the Raleigh City Council and is therefore a public body and subject to the Open Meetings law. Email is a type of communication that is covered by that law, and so any of the types of email communication involving CAC and/or city matters would be public record.

But the CACs aren’t advisory boards in the spirit of North Carolina’s Open Meetings Law. From the City’s own page on CACs (emphasis mine):

CACs are nonpartisan. They also are independent of the City Council. In fact, CACs are the only advisory boards to the City Council that are not appointed by the Council. Instead, residents of each CAC region elect the chairperson and other officers of their CAC.

Membership in a CAC isn’t by appointment like other city boards: one becomes a member of a CAC based on where one lives. That means every city resident is now subject to the Open Meetings Law. And since there are over 10,000 residents in the East CAC (for instance) and therefore 10,000 members in the East CAC, does that mean a quorum of this “advisory board” is 5,001 citizens?
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5,000th post!

I just checked the official MT.Net counter and this marks my 5,000th blog post ever! That’s 500 posts per year for almost ten years (November 24th marks my decade blogging anniversary).

Thanks to all of my readers who’ve found something useful in what I write. And here’s to many more years of blogging!

Family, projects, baseball

I enjoyed the weekend. It began Friday afternoon with Hallie’s violin performance in the Conn variety show. Our girl stood in front of half the school and absolutely nailed her piece. Kelly and I are constantly amazed that the complete confidence our kids have for performing in front of a crowd. She had not one whit of stage fright and played beautifully.

My parents came over to see the performance and Kelly’s parents came down for that and to stay the weekend. We spent Friday evening at Music on the Porch and were ready for bed around 10.

Saturday morning, I cooked pancakes for the family. Then we went to the NC Museum of History to check out a toys exhibit. It was fun looking through the exhibits, many of which I hadn’t seen before.
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