It was a screen shot. Sorry. See if this works.
From Raleigh City Council Member David Cox:
Hi all,
In a surprise move, Saige Martin made a series of motions to end the CACs. Each of those motions was seconded by Nicole Stewart. None of this was discussed with me. Although shortly after the election I predicted that something like this might happen, it came as a complete surprise and shock.
There was no public discussion. None of the CAC chairs was informed. Yet, the move to end the CACs was billed as creating better citizen engagement.
Coming from New York where we didn’t have anything like them, I was always impressed with the CACs. They allowed public discussions on all kinds of issues from neighborhood crime, to park events, to public service opportunities, and, yes, rezoning requests. Now, that is all gone and replaced with a vague (dare I say empty?) promise to hire a consultant to study citizen engagement.
This move saddens and angers me not because I personally wasn’t in the loop. Rather I am saddened and angered at the hypocrisy and that so much that has been built over the past 50 years was cut down. It angers me because of what it does to every citizen in our city. The CACs have been an institution that is a model of citizen engagement. The have been a foundation to be built upon.
I will find ways to begin meeting with people. I will meet in people’s homes. I will meet at the mall. I will meet churches. I will meet at parks. This isn’t over. If this Council sticks to this decision, so be it. There is always 2021 - at least for now, they haven’t done away with elections.
In the interim, without CACs and citizens having a chance to meet and discuss rezoning requests, I do not see how I can support any rezoning request. Without the CACs, my vote on all future requests will be NO.
David Cox, PhD
Raleigh City Council
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Oh look he found a way to blame those that want to advance Raleigh for all his anti-development votes.
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What if there is a request for something he would support? He said he would say NO to everything, so…
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LOL his vote was gonna be NO anyways
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What a slap in the face to the people he represents.
If he’s not willing to do his duty and consider the issues before him then he needs to resign.
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He’s being a child. He thinks the 10 people that vote at CAC meetings represent the entire region. That’s asinine. But not surprising.
@Kanatenah, where was this posted?
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Someone posted it on Nextdoor in my neighborhood.
I will meet them in a box, I will meet them with a Fox…I will meet here or there. I will meet them anywhere…
David I am…
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tl;dr
"I’m a conservative and it angers me that this progressive council abolished an old practice that’s been conserved for decades. I will now clutch tighter to my world view and close my mind to more new ideas.
Mr. PhD"
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Well, the News & Observer took a surprising slant this morning in supporting the sudden change:
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I agree that the CACs were biased towards homeowners that have plenty of spare time on their hands, which means that they tend to be older, wealthier, resistant to change. The meeting environments themselves tended to be subject to groupthink and mob mentality.
Cynics are saying that council is doing this to kow tow to their developer overlords, but I do not believe this. I fully believe that their motives are genuine.
That said, I am concerned that the optics of this are so bad, and it is so easy to spin negatively, that it will energize the “Council of No” and their base so much as to make this council a “two-and-through crew”.
A better option, in my opinion, would have been to supplement the CACs with a more inclusive, outreach-based engagement option that doesn’t require attendance at an often-tedious weekday evening meeting. Online? Mail-in ballots? Weigh opinions equally regardless of attendance and regardless of whether a ballot is submitted in person at the CAC, online through an engagement portal, or mailed in. Don’t present it like “Online votes were in favor by 77-22 but the CAC voted against by 3-12.” Make the ballots secret at the CAC and don’t even tally them during the meeting. When presenting to council, just give the total, which would be 81-34.
What would have been the downside? $1000 per CAC, so a total of $18000 per year? Come on Raleigh, dig in the couch cushions a bit. They have created a political controversey where there didn’t have to be one and provides their opponents with a talking point, one that may resonate well past their base, where they didn’t have it before. A miscalculation, IMO.
There is a school of political thought that you should never waste a chance to dunk on your opponent and that having a desire to build bridges and make conciliatory gestures are both pointless signs of weakness. This is, in my opinion, unfortunate. I think this attitude of intentional divisiveness and polarization is trickling down from national politics into the local scene, while the actual truth is that national issues have little relevance and coalitions are completely different at the local level. I don’t care that CAC attendees aren’t representative of the population. They still deserve a voice - and if CAC meetings are how they like to express that voice, then let 'em do it. Just don’t let them run the show.
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I agree the decision is going to have a lasting negative light on the council, though with the number of people that even knew what a CAC is, that impact should be minimal. What I really dislike is the people jumping on the bandwagon that never attended meetings and/or don’t even know what a CAC is. Much of what knowledgeable people are complaining about is that they enjoyed the information given to them by the various departments and the time getting to know their neighbors. I don’t see the harm in continuing that effort but maybe change the system to support that narrative and expand how the information is shared to be more inclusive (the main reason for the change). Giving the CACs any sense of “power” for rezoning requests was silly, truly.
Not having an alternative mechanism in place is also a big sore spot with people.
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2 years is a long time. People have short memories…and clearly most Raleighites have other priorities given how few ever attended CAC meetings so why would they be so bothered about something they never attended in the first place?
Because when the elections come around, their opponents are sure to trot this out as a talking point.
“BE BOLD! BE STRONG! BE DECISIVE!”
Well, okay… but don’t hand your opponent ammunition to use against you when it is completely unnecessary to do so!
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People’s memories are short, but I don’t think they’re short enough to forget the Council of No and the havoc they wreaked on the City, all the way down to outlawing AirBnBs and killing sidewalk projects near parks. I’m obviously in the YIMBY crowd so take it with a grain of salt but I can deal with this power play (and let’s not kid ourselves, that’s what it is) just so long as the new Council doesn’t make a habit of it.
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I agree with this. The optics are bad maybe right now, but the Stef supporting lovers of the CACs were never gonna reelect the current council, and the general population doesn’t really care (and certainly won’t vote on this in 2 years… When some other more inclusive system is in place.)
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The general public may not care on a day to day basis, but when election time comes around, and they’re looking for a reason to vote for this candidate or that, they might care. The general public that is not very engaged on local issues is looking for reasons to vote one way or another. The easiest thing that people do is vote along party lines, but given that basically every council candidate is a democrat, that doesn’t work. That will turn many people off from voting altogether, but the ones who do decide to vote anyway will tend to do things like look at endorsements, or listen for sound bites like “Blocked a sidewalk that had been in the works for years because of one noisy neighbor’s complaint”, or “Unceremoniously / autocratically ended a decades-old method of public engagement without warning, prior discussion, or even putting it on the agenda.”
Doing this will probably play very well with their base, but given the non-partisan elections and the generally low level of engagement in local politics, there are potentially a lot more swing votes at play in every local election. It’s playing with fire, unnecessarily in my opinion.
They should have started a new engagement method while keeping CACs running in parallel. If attendance at CACs drops off, or if way more people use the new method, then point to the numbers and say “See, CACs are a dinosaur. Let’s end it.” If attendance at CACs is unchanged, and not way less than the new method, then let them stand. $18000/year? That’s one Hayes-Barton house’s worth of annual property tax.
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Agreed. The optics on this are bad because it’s never a good plan to whack an ‘institution’ (regardless of how one personally feels about its effectiveness) without a real plan for whatever vision you see on the other side. Couple that with the irony of ‘creating an inclusive environment for engagement’ by sweeping this change through in a matter that smacks of a power play and you certainly turn up the volume on your next steps. Hope they’re ready…
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The key is going to be a real viable replacement for the very outdated CAC’s this council is not stupid they have done independent studies and reviewed polling data again the key is a replacement that actually engages the citizens of Raleigh.
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