I spent 2012 chairing two boards for the city: one the Parks board and the other the Raleigh CAC (RCAC) board. The RCAC is a board made up by the officers of the city’s various CACs. It is a rather large board with 19 members: so many that there was often not enough chairs to seat everyone.
I had been a member of the RCAC during my time as chair of the East CAC but I never felt comfortable taking on another leadership role until I had stepped down as East chair. With the handover of the East CAC I could focus on leading the RCAC.
I held monthly RCAC meetings, not of all of which were televised as they usually are. Some of these took place at retreats where we discussed important topics in-depth. I made sure the members helped decide the agendas and gave each some time to discuss what was happening in their neighborhoods. It was quite flattering to have Dwayne Patterson remark about how well the meetings were going.
My term as RCAC chair turned out to be more eventful than I could’ve imagined. In May both chairs of the Wade CAC stepped down, leaving a leadership vacuum. Elections had been in progress but were to be postponed for months. Someone needed to jump-start things again and so I stepped in to do so.
Neighbors were angry. It was a political powderkeg and I knew if I had any common sense I should steer clear of it. I was sweating bullets at the thought of calming these very passionate neighbors but I managed to hold new elections by the next regularly-scheduled meeting. I wish I could say I helped bring some semblance of peace to the neighborhood. Instead, I accomplished my goal of letting the citizens decide their own fate.
The other major highlight was the role I played in showing over 100 Charlotte kids how Raleigh’s citizens advisory councils work. This was true flying by the seat of my pants as I had only a tenuous grasp of what the teachers wanted to accomplish. It all worked out, a few city councilors and CAC chairs joined us, and I got a chance to watch kids as they began to catch on to how politics works. The shade-tree teacher in me had an absolute blast.