Laserfiche WebLink
BK:00026 PG - 0391 <br />PRESS RELEASE <br />Charles Parks, County Commissioner <br />As has been publicized, for some time now, I have wanted to have a series of Town Hall <br />Meetings to receive input on local government issues from citizens in the various parts of our <br />county. One of the places I selected for this town hall type meeting was Carolina Trace which <br />was geographically convenient to one area of our community and had a nice meeting facility. <br />After the initial advertisements were made of this public meeting, I became aware of the fact that <br />there may be problems related to North Carolina's Open Meetings Law. In fact, the County <br />Attorney gave me certain advice related to this issue and provided me with a method of <br />addressing certain access issues if I decided to proceed with the meeting. <br />After reviewing the County Attorney's memo and realizing that people had already planned to <br />attend, I decided it would be best to go ahead and have the meeting in that it was already <br />scheduled and announced and to attempt to implement the necessary access safeguards to insure <br />compliance. As it turned out, for a variety of reasons, despite my best efforts, problems did arise <br />and for this I am sorry. However, a good faith attempt was made to comply with the Open <br />Meetings Law and no Board action was taken at this meeting. <br />Finally, realizing, from experience, the difficulties in having a public meeting at a privately <br />owned location, it is my intention to never call such a meeting again in the future. If my plan of <br />holding geographically disbursed Town Hall Meetings is to continue, they will occur in publicly <br />owned facilities. <br />NORTH CAROLINA LEE COUI7Y <br />Presented for registration on this 9 — day <br />of o, i'4 at,s�:�M /PM <br />reco ed fn Book _�_ Page Lf <br />Mollie A McInnis, Register of Deeds <br />