I’m fine with CACs with specific limitations. As long as they are run independently by the communities and have no voting power.
I vote for my city councilor for a reason. I trust them to add teer the city in the fight direction. I didn’t vote for a CAC. There is no reason they should be given any power whatsoever.
I’m in the same boat. If they just return the system that we had then that feels disingenuous. Top issues for me would be:
Zoning seems so hot that it needs it’s own thing. This is to keep city staff sane, zoning applicants sane, and honestly, prevents it being overrun by the die hards. Lay people should have access to this stuff too.
Pretty much same boat here. Using the CACs to inform, but any feedback from CACs needs to be taken with a grain of salt just as the feedback from this forum should be taken with a grain of salt. It’s a limited sample and based on the total region of that CACs boundaries, a very very limited sample set. I know we’ve been over this ad nauseam in the past.
Yeah, well, that seems to be their whole game.
The SH## SH#W is about to make a return. NO WAY the current council makeup doesn’t vote to reinstate them.
Time to become more actively involved in your neighborhoods if don’t just want SFH & strip malls across the City.
That meeting is epic. Jones to Baldwin: “it sucks to be blindsided”…
Voted unanimously in favor to reinstate CACs, mainly to allow them to use city facilities and communication tools like Zoom.
Time to restart a Downtown Raleigh CAC then and maybe even take over leadership or power dynamics of whatever CACs affect downtown Raleigh.
The vote was to allow CAC groups access to community centers and technology, as part of our engagement network, which was discussed and agreed upon at our retreat. Similar access will be afforded to other groups too, through our Community Engagement Office, like nonprofit organizations and other interest-based groups. There will be a registration process online soon for those other groups. You can watch/learn more from retreat presentation online.
It’s not a return to the old system. Rezonings are handled separately as they have been for 4 years.
We’re working to build a system that provides multiple points of engagement. If you want to engage in person at a neighborhood meeting, you can attend one of the CAC or other meetings. If you want to engage online, that’s an option too. And if you have never engaged or don’t feel like the city cares about you, we will work to find you and engage with you through our community engagement bus and other neighborhood ambassador programs that we have already implemented.
That whole performance was a tit for tat…
CAC’s should be one avenue to engage…but, there should absolutely be a more robust network of options for citizens to engage beyond the CACs. That’s where this ‘new engagement process’ stumbled - took too long over Covid, slammed the door on some truly engaged citizens without a new door to walk through, didn’t really increase access to info, gave the ‘ruining my town, don’t want a city’ criers more to cry about…some of it founded and some not. CAC’s weren’t meant to be an approval board, but if that’s the way neighbors want to be social and learn about issues, great – let’s just recognize we need to do better to broadcast information from the city to its citizens wherever they want to engage and let’s acknowledge no one access point for citizen feedback holds greater sway than the whole.
Thank you for your message. Your comment during the meeting was also really useful.
Oh course, ultimately, whoever controls a veto-proof majority at city council will determine how much control a limited number of unelected citizens have over the entire city. With or without CAC.
You know something I don’t, maybe?
Seems the slow march of local governing is not a zero sum game. Council work is about finding consensus to balance the needs of a growing city. Hopefully more often than not, common sense prevails and analysis paralysis doesn’t persist.
That’s not how it works in real life. CACs sound great on paper but in reality most people don’t care about municipal politics and will not get involved–voting in elections is the most common form of civic participation and thus the most representative. So those 1% of citizens with money, time, and energy get over-represented under the guise that their views are the mandates of the commons/vox populi.
How does one find out how to attend one’s CAC meeting? I can’t find information about this online. (I’m in northwest.)
Thanks to forums like this, and movements like Strong Towns, more young people are getting involved in local politics and making it a more balanced representation of the spectrum. Just look at the turn out for New Bern brt
Hopefully the city will make it easy to find this out, once it is jump-started.
I noticed several CAC’s continued to provide activity via social media (like FB or Nextdoor) in the past four years. (Mordecai and East CACs as examples.) Others like Northeast were completely dead. I’d search around to see if you can find yours.
I think all of us should find out what our local ones are doing when they get active and use this forum to try to get our fellow urban enthusiasts to get engaged!
The fact that FB & Nextdoor have been the primary sources of communication should tell you a lot about the historical demographic makeup of those ‘actively involved’ in these CACs. Per Evan’s note, let’s hope a younger group gets engaged in these CACs.
Quick update about the Martin Street Community Safety meeting that occurred last night (2/7) at Roberts Park Community Center. (If you’re just joining, see above.)
I didn’t expect much of a turnout to be honest – who wants to come to a community safety meeting on a Wednesday night? – but around 30 people showed up, which was great. Corey Branch and representatives from the RPD were also there to talk about what they’re doing in the community, answer questions, and hear concerns. A lot was shared, some important ideas were communicated, and some action items were set. All in all, a great discussion. Some highlights:
I’m sure there are some items that I’m missing (the meeting lasted two hours), but the big takeaway is that this is going to be a regular, ongoing effort to communicate more closely with the community, hold the city and RPD more accountable, and answer everyone’s needs. To that end, another meeting has already been scheduled for Thursday, March 14, 7pm at Roberts Park Community Center. Branch and the RPD will be presenting their progress so far and will continue to solicit community input.
So the work continues. I set up a quick website at martinstreetcommunity.org where people can sign up for news and see updates on our progress. Hope to see even more of the community at the next meeting!
offhand thoughts…is there a thread or interest in ‘things from other cites’ that would apply to making certain city functions getting technological upgrades or changes? signal priorities, massive shredding of waste for greater landfill capacity https://www.ssiworld.com/en . i know many led lights were installed downtown many years ago.
I would like to have moloks again.