Dawa, Sarah and Brad,
I was reading a blog post on the NC Press Association website this afternoon, and it caused me to have a question regarding the City's Board restructure proposal.
A key element of the City's plan is to use "Working Groups" to (hopefully) allow more people to participate in the work of local government. However, to satisfy the "efficiency" goal of the proposed restructure, the City intends for these Working Groups to meet as informal bodies and without staff support. While I don't support this approach and I'm skeptical it will be successful - I do understand the rationale; if City Staff need to support an unlimited number of working groups, it's likely this proposed restructure would actually require MORE staff time and resources than the current system.
Which brings me to my question this afternoon - a section of this blog post states:
For example, it is clear that a monthly school board meeting is open to the public. But if the board has created a policy committee, a facilities subcommittee, or Covid-19 task force – even if the committee is made up of parents or representatives of the business community – meetings of these groups are subject to the same open meetings rules that apply to the general board meetings.
That makes me wonder - doesn't this article indicate that the City's proposed "working groups," since they are created by Advisory Boards, also be public bodies? That would mean they would be required to hold public meetings, keep minutes, etc as required under NC Open Meetings Law.
I'm sharing this with Dawa and Sarah as I feel this information may be helpful as they evaluate next steps for the proposed restructure, but I would also appreciate any clarification that Brad can provide regarding how "working groups" would operate under NC Open Meetings Law.
Patrick Conant