Social anxiety haver here. The heck if I want to jump up and speak in front of a bunch of people who aren’t paying to listen to me. But I kept showing up to the CAC meetings anyway in an effort to fight the NIMBYs. It never seemed like they had any one particular agenda or theme behind why they were saying “no” to proposed development. If the first reason why they were opposed to it was something like “too much traffic”, and the developers shot that full of holes, they would just switch gears to some completely unrelated topic like “affordable housing”. It always just felt like they were trying to find convenient excuses to be against the development rather than having actual concerns about the topics they were bringing up.
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Yep, you’ve summed up most of my experience at CAC meetings as well.
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In the words of a Motley Crue song…”girl don’t go away mad, girl, just go away!!”
I’m curious if a municipal YouTube channel is in order or even FaceBook Live. Would that increase involvement? Or, would the nattering nabobs of discontent hijack that as well? Hmmm.
I know Corey Branch Facebook Lives his monthly District C public meetings. Not sure about the others, haven’t checked. These monthly district meetings seem to have been forgotten by the media and public so maybe they could be an existing alternate that could be pumped up. Not sure if that’s what this council wants tho, or the best option
I personally don’t “do” FB and as for YouTube, it’s a good option imo. I hope however, that even though the wonderful, up and coming tech city that Raleigh is becoming, that we don’t put all our eggs in the one basket known as “tech” just for the sake of it… 
The city already has a YouTube channel, including live streams of council meetings. But based on the view numbers, hardly anyone knows about it, and I doubt they have the resources to properly promote it. It does look like they’re trying though – the “Monday News” series looks to be newly launched this week. Durham does something similar with their “Bull City Wrap” weekly updates, and “Bull City Today” daily videos, but their view numbers aren’t much better than Raleigh’s on a majority of their videos.
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I still think there’s huge value in face-to-face meetings. If it was up to me, I would have just kept the existing CAC system but it had to change because what existed needed 12 city staffers. That amazes me by the way, that’s a low ROI. So some a combination of technology and the in-person meetings would be a better system.
To be honest, the bar is low so I don’t think it will be that hard to create something that would already welcome those that are CAC advocates + newcomers that are now engaged. If engagement goes up from 5% to 10%, for example, that’s a positive change.
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Here’s the video.
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I don’t think this was posted above, outside of referencing “the video” so here’s a link:
Start at 2:31:30 for Mr. Martin’s motion.
Around 2:37:ish Mr. Martin has a good explanation of the challenge and why the motion exists.
Vote at 2:46:05
Stef at … (Leo will get to this before I’m able to).
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Stef is during the evening session I think. I’m looking for it as well.
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Didn’t this nitwit, Mendell vote with Cox a year or so ago to prevent citizens from ‘speaking freely’ at council meetings? Some nonsense about not being able to directly ask a specific councilor a question? I’m I recalling this correctly?
I love revisionist history tellers…
Please do it…!!! Please!!!
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