March 8, 2008

Much of this week was spent in Asheville attending the Essentials in Government workshop held by the NC School of Government and the League of Municipalities.

The week began on a high note with my participation in West Cary Middle School’s career day. I was the designated greeter for students, faculty, and career presenters. It was a lot of fun talking with many of the students and administration. Hopefully, I will be able to visit them again in the near future.

There were only a couple minor staff meetings and then six members of the council, the town manager, attorney, and clerk headed for Asheville. The three day conference included topics on roles of elected officials, financial management, legal matters regarding efficiency and openness, relationships between elected officials, challenges facing elected officials, building economically competitive communities, open governments, effective public meetings, and environmental issues. A major side benefit of the conference was elected officials attending from all over the state. It allowed us to meet and discuss solutions to unique problems facing each of our communities.

Emails this week mostly focused on having at-large elections of school board members on our legislative agenda. It is my understanding that the council will support this providing it is not the same as the bills introduced last year. Unfortunately those bills were questioned because of how they might violate the voting rights act. In addition, they did not have support of the Wake County delegation. For a bill to be addressed in the short session it at least needs the support of our delegation. I believe a compromised solution to the problem might gain support of most if not all of our delegates. Regardless, I believe an at-large Board of Education election will be on our agenda.

Other emails and phone calls included requests to give talks, do interviews, and concerns about various problems around town. So overall it was a relatively quiet week. 

I need to spend some time preparing for next week’s council meeting so I guess that’s about it for this week I hope to post next week on March the 15^th.