No soup for you!

Ok, it wasn't that blatant. Likely just a poor choice of venue with no intent to skirt the public meetings law intent. But last night's Land Use and Transportation Plan workshop should have taken place at town hall chambers as originally posted on the TOM website. With no microphones for participants and little room for the public inside the conference room, the meeting should have been moved from the Public Safety/Inspections/Planning building to accommodate the interested public.

As per UNC School of Government David Lawrence's Q&A on open meetings:

Q: Does the open meetings law say anything about meeting rooms? If the room is too small for the audience, has there been a violation of the law?

A: The law says nothing about the size of meeting rooms. As long as a public body does not consistently meet in a room too small to hold all who wish to attend, there should be no violation of the law if occasionally an unexpectedly large crowd causes the room to be too small. Of course, if such an occasion arises, the public body should attempt as best it can to accommodate citizens. This sort of approach won the support of the Georgia, New Mexico, and Wisconsin courts in comparable cases.

The LUTP process has been a flawed one. Volunteer PAC members had their roles changed early in the process from influential to well, bobble head dolls. The resultant documents were not approved nor even endorsed by the volunteer committee originally tasked with helping create them. There is unease with both the process and the product. Holding an important LUTP workshop in a sardine can didn't help.

My suggestion for the next PZB/Town Council meeting on Monday, Sept 8th: hold it in a venue that meets the intent of the NC open meetings law.*

* SS143-318.9 - Whereas the public bodies that administer the legislative, policy-making, quasi-judicial, administrative, and advisory functions of North Carolina and its political subdivisions exist solely to conduct the people's business, it is the public policy of North Carolina that the hearings, deliberations, and actions of these bodies be conducted openly.