Last week, the City of Raleigh voted to disband the Community Engagement Board (the thing that was supposed to replace the old CAC system) due to a lack of clarity in how it’s supposed to operate. I haven’t had the chance to listen to the meeting’s discussions on this, but does anyone have a better idea as to what’s happening and/or what could replace that?
It sounds like the city’s ongoing Comprehensive Plan update involves setting up a citizen’s assembly, but I’m not sure how this relates to that announcement.
If you don't know what a citizen's assembly is, click here!
For those of y’all who don’t know, citizen’s assemblies are kind of like jury duty, except it’s for making laws as opposed to holding a trial about them.
Ireland has done this, most famously, to deal with constitutional problems or sensitive policy debates (e.g. abortion). Similar things have happened in France, Scotland, and surprisingly even Texas. The proposed version for Raleigh seems to involve several citizens being randomly picked, then being paid a $1,000 stipend to show up to meetings where they discuss questions that the city poses. The city, in turn, commits to formally listening to and considering the results of those discussions.
For more questions like the timeline, how that $1k figure was chosen etc., take a look at this city memo!