After sniffing around, my best guess is it will require a
commitment of 100 -150 hours over 12 – 15 months. The minimum is ~25 hours
for 7 meetings. Since the timetable of 18 month is very aggressive, my
gut tells me more meeting time will be required.
Remember, the RCAC is an advisory group to the City Council. We
can recommend anything, but the City Council has the final say.
From: rcac-bounces@eastraleigh.org
[mailto:rcac-bounces@eastraleigh.org] On Behalf Of Bill Padgett
Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2009 11:04 AM
To: 'Ana Duncan Pardo'; 'RCAC'
Subject: Re: [RCAC] Fwd: Zoning code update advisory group--finalizing
CAC leader part...
Hi folks,
Several comments …
We are, as elected chairs of the RCAC/CAC
representing our constituents, to provide council to the City Council–
and that should be our guiding principle in all of activities.
With that in mind I have several thoughts
as to philosophy & process of these kind of issues …
I would suggest that the bigger picture is
whether we make our own decisions and send to City Council or delegate those
selections to other bodies. While it may be unclear whether we have the power
to appoint our own folks from the RCAC to various bodies, if we don’t
exercise that choice we will have decided we do not have that authority and
that would be a shame. HERE we are told we have 3 reps (and 3 is very generous)
and we should make those recommendations – perhaps one day we will be a
part of the decision process where we suggest what our level of participation
should be. Over the past several years we have had a lot of discussion about
appointing folks to key city committees. We have even entertained recommending
to Council a proposal that the RCAC be given a recommendation
‘slot’ on all the major committees where we make our recommendation
to Council for appointment. One of the key reasons for this idea was to have
folks at our RCAC table that were directly involved in the key City committees
and it would serve both as expertise for us as individual chairs but also
provide leadership for the RCAC as we make key recommendations back to City
Council. In all honesty we don’t participate in those appointments but if
you want to empower the RCAC/CAC this might be a exciting way to reach that
goal.
In the UDO we are to have 3
‘representatives from the RCAC’ – it is an opportunity to
take an assertive step and make those recommendations. How these
recommendations come about speaks volumes about the empowerment of the CACs
– so this provides a real opportunity to understand how the process works
and if we don’t like it, work with the City/Council to change it.
As the RCAC/CACs are autonomous bodies, to
not tap our expertise to appoint folks to this committee misses an opportunity
to have folks on that committee serve that we know represent our values. I am
not a proponent for letting someone else tell the RCAC who should represent us
since it will lead us to act individually with the ‘powers that be’
to get the appointments we want’; this would discourage working together
collectively and shift accountability to the appointing body when it should be
the RCAC/CAC.
This UDP Advisory Group will require a lot
of time … and thus I would expect anyone representing the RCAC be
committed to having not only this additional time for the UDO but also 1) the
time to commit to the CAC chairs so that they will be able to have both input
and 2) help lead the RCAC to make council to the City on key issues that cross
all CAC boundaries. In short this means coming to the RCAC meetings and being
involved in our activities. So can we assume from each of the 6 volunteers that
they are willing to commit not only the time to the UDO but also to the RCAC
& CAC chairs to carry their issues and bring back to the RCAC the knowledge
and recommendation where we can collaborate to press key issues within our
communities?
By the way just because we have three
official appointees, it does not preclude that others can’t be very
involved and also attend these public meetings. Were others interested in doing
this I would expect our ‘official reps’ to make sure their concerns
and suggestions were part of the discussion.
We need a process for times like this
… for now we can leave it to the executive committee (that is why we
elected them); call for a vote over email or by phone; or call a special
meeting of the RCAC if this issues is critical enough. In January I think we
need to have this discussion at our January meeting because these issues
continue to come up several times a year and we need a process with which we
are all comfortable.
Thanks for reading my ramblings!
Regards, Bill
From: rcac-bounces@eastraleigh.org
[mailto:rcac-bounces@eastraleigh.org] On Behalf Of Ana Duncan Pardo
Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2009 9:12 AM
To: RCAC
Subject: Re: [RCAC] Fwd: Zoning code update advisory group--finalizing
CAC leader part...
Hi folks,
We now have a total of six chairs
who have expressed interest in participating on the UDO Advisory Group. After
discussing it with Alan Wiggs, we think the best thing to do is to simply send the list of the six nominees to Council
and Planning. The only firm recommendation is for Paul Brant, as he
volunteered and was accepted by the RCAC at the November meeting. The
other nominees will be listed in the order in which they were nominated, as
follows:
Phil Poe
Mark Turner
Danny Coleman
Justin Fischer
Elizabeth Byrd
Sound OK? Unless anyone
objects to doing it this way, I'll send the letter to the appropriate folks at
the end of the day today.
Ana
On Dec 2, 2009, at 1:30 AM, Southralcap@aol.com
wrote: