A tech tip from VC3. If your municipality is still relying on traditional antivirus software, it may be time for an upgrade. Today's cyberattacks are designed to slip past basic defenses undetected. That's where endpoint detection and response, or EDR, comes in. EDR continuously monitors your devices for suspicious behavior and can automatically contain threats before they spread. It's not just about blocking known malware. It's about catching attacks in progress. For municipalities, EDR is an essential layer of protection that keeps your data safe, protects you from cyber threats, and detects attacks early so you can stop them faster. This tech tip from VC3. From the North Carolina League of Municipalities,

So as senior assistant general counsel, I work on a range of legal matters, working in close coordination with our general counsel, Jennifer Schneier. I would say a good part of my time is spent helping with internal operations that could range from reviewing and negotiating contracts to developing internal policies and more. External facing work includes responding to member inquiries. So on any given day, we'll get a call from an elected official or maybe a municipal staff member with questions ranging from public contracts to open meetings to, land use law. I mean, really a wide range of topics. And And it's one of the many things I like about working here is one, I get to work with elected officials and staff from all over the state. And two, I get to, broaden my knowledge base in a wide variety of areas. So it's been it's been a lot of fun. So a a lot of variety kinda. A lot of variety. Mhmm.

They're very active and engaged. I think it's a great place for attorneys who are interested in getting more experience in municipal law to to start. We have two conferences every year. One is we call it the winter conference, is always held in Chapel Hill, the UNC School of Government. The summer conference is a location that rotates every year and a large part of my job includes preparing the CLE speakers for the summer conference. So I get to work with very talented subject matter experts and, hopefully deliver high quality programming at the summer conference.

So I put this brief article together earlier this year. And in doing so, I had to kind of think about my target audience. And my target audience here is primarily newly elected officials. In my work at the league and then before that working at the city of Raleigh, I was able to interact with elected officials and learn a lot from them. And one thing I learned is that it can be kind of overwhelming as a newly elected official. It's much like drinking from a fire hose of information. There's a lot to learn in a short period of time. And so understanding that the goal here was to make this somewhat accessible, I brainstorm different approaches. And I thought about the David Letterman top 10 list. Oh yeah. Favorite. And then hit as a favorite and then I went to like the top three. I was like maybe we can pair it down to three and then ultimately I landed on five. So what are the top five topics that I think every newly elected official should know? It's certainly not limited to newly elected officials. This list could, I think, be helpful to experienced incumbents, to appointed officials. And in that case, I hope that the list is something that they can build upon their current knowledge base. So with that kind of introduction in place, the first topic I identified was knowing your authority, specifically your town charter and your core statutes. You'll hear me talk about towns or cities or villages, sometimes interchangeably. And for purposes of this discussion, they all mean the same thing. It's all the same thing. Yeah. City, Town Village, North Carolina. They're all municipalities. So, what I'll talk about today would apply to all of them equally. So, as an attorney, I'm actually going to talk about the law. And I think it's important for elected officials to be comfortable learning about the law and asking questions about the law. We certainly don't expect folks to become lawyers overnight or even go to law school. But again, I think the more effective officials are those who are willing to take the time to read the law. We'll share it. It's all available for free online. And then think about what the issues are and develop a sensibility in terms of when it's the right time to consult with your attorney. When I teach to elected officials throughout the state, I'll sometimes do a call and response. And the call is when in doubt and they respond, consult with your attorney. Mhmm. So when in doubt, consult with your attorney. So let's talk about authority. When we talk about authority, we're talking about understanding where a town gets its ability and its power to make decisions. And we usually start with a discussion about the town's charter. The town's charter is a legal document that establishes a number of things. It could be their initial boundaries, their form of government, it could be the name of the town and more. And it is certainly something that I would encourage elected officials to review when they take office. Usually, you can get it by talking to your town attorney or your town clerk. The North Carolina General Assembly's website also has a page that includes links to different charters. So there's different ways to get there. And if an official has a hard time getting their charter, they can call us at the league and we'll help them get there. Some charters date back to the seventeen hundreds. Some are more recent. For example, New Bern has a charter that was issued in 1723. Bermuda Run has a charter that was issued in 1999. Alright. Yeah. So when you think of your charter, think of it as your town's birth certificate, but also kind of an instruction manual. So that would be the first thing I would encourage elected officials to find and review is their charter. Now in addition to your town charter, you'll hear us talk a lot about the general statutes. And I have my little prop here. This is the one of several general statutes of North Carolina. This one includes chapter 160 A Okay. Which is That rings a bell. That it should ring a bell. It's the one we talk about the most because it touches on municipal operations. Mhmm. Also included in this book is chapter 160 d, which you'll hear us talk about from time to time and that is a statute, that touches on land use regulations. So another important part of a municipality's operations. There are other statutes that we'll talk about, but this was, these are the laws that are adopted by the North Carolina General Assembly. That is the legislative branch of state government. And it's important to understand how they work. When we talk about knowing your authority, it's under it's important to understand that in North Carolina, we're not a home rule state. So our towns don't have inherent rights to act. Whatever authority they have, it must be granted to them by statute through the North Carolina General Assembly. It's not like that in other parts of the country. So it's certainly important to remind our elected officials about that, especially if they come into office with maybe a broader vision about what their town is actually authorized to do. Yeah. Or maybe if they come in from another state, they've been living here for a few years, maybe more familiar with, you know, how things go elsewhere. That's a great example. I'm familiar with an elected official who served in a elected role in another state where the mayor tends to have more of an executive role. And that is not the case in North Carolina. In North Carolina's in North Carolina, the mayors tend to be, nonexecutive. They do have important functions to be sure, but certainly different when compared to other states. Mhmm. So conceptually, when we teach about the authority that a town has, it's helpful to kind of think about how the law affects us personally. So me and you, when we think about our private lives, we can do anything we want to do unless the law tells us that we can't. Now it's the opposite for our towns. The towns can't do anything unless the general assembly says they can. Right. So it's helpful to think about it that way. And also when you're making decisions and you're taking actions and if there's any question about whether the town is authorized to do it, you can talk to your town attorney. When in doubt, you consult with your attorney, and they can walk you through these issues. Sometimes we're asked about what our towns are authorized to do by statute. Common examples would be your police, fire, water, sewer services, zoning, solid waste collection are all good examples. A broader example would be the regulation to protect general health, safety, and welfare. Sometimes we will refer to that as the police powers that a municipality has. So when we talk about authority, it's important to look at your charter. It's important to look at your general statutes. It's also important to look at whether your municipality has any local acts that were adopted in its favor. A local act is a law passed by the General Assembly. But direct it's either directly targeted at your your specific municipality or perhaps a group of municipalities. They're different from your general statutes because they don't apply to everybody equally. They apply specifically to the locality pointed out in the local act, which is why we call it the local act. Mhmm. So for example, if your town wants to charge an additional sales tax,

like that. Correct. And all of that would require some type of act by the general assembly in the form of a local act. So that would be an example. If neighboring towns, like in your example, also wanted to have a similar ability to charge a beach renourishment tax, the local act could include that group of towns. That would be an example. But there are other examples throughout the state. So I share that because I think it's important when we start looking at sources of authority, there are a few different places you wanna look. Look. Right. Yeah. Sometimes we'll get questions about how a board goes about getting a local act passed. And the first step would be to consult with your attorney, talk to your manager or administrator, find out what it is the town needs. Mhmm. Then you want to contact your local delegation in Raleigh. So your local delegation would include your senators and your representatives in the general assembly who are from the area and who represent your town. And usually, the matters aren't very controversial. Local acts are passed as kind of a courtesy to the delegation from other members of the general assembly. But if you're having any challenges connecting with your delegation, well, that's one of many reasons why you wanna contact the league. We can help you make that connection. Various channels of communication, we offer the town estate dinner, which is a wonderful opportunity for

And I wanna step back and talk about how a town actually creates a local law through its authority. And they do that through what's called an ordinance. So an ordinance is similar to general statute in that it carries the weight and effect of the law, but only applies to the municipality. Now, an ordinance, the expectation is that the ordinance is passed in accordance with the authority granted by the general assembly. That's the expectation. But sometimes an ordinance can be preempted. That means basically rendered ineffective, If it conflicts with the federal constitution, The United States constitution or the North Carolina constitution or any other laws. And so there are four scenarios that I wanna talk about where preemption may prevent or limit a town from enforcing an ordinance. Gotcha. So the first one is when an ordinance infringes on a liberty protected by the North Carolina and The United States constitutions. So for example, during the pandemic, some states and local governments attempted to ban religious gatherings. And these laws were struck down as a violation of the freedom of religion. So that would be your first category, infringing upon protected liberty. Your second scenario is when an ordinance seeks to outlaw something that is considered lawful under higher law, meaning the state statute or the state constitution or a federal law. In that case, it would be preempted. So a county may regulate begging, but it cannot ban begging outright. And that's because the United States Supreme Court held that that is a protected right and that begging in public areas is to be protected. Gotcha. So regulation versus banning is another example. Your third example is when an ordinance permits something unlawful under higher law. So it's kind of the reverse of the prior example. So in this case, a town cannot legalize marijuana. That's the example. That's something that a state would need to do, notwithstanding other implications at the federal level. Sure. And then finally, our final example is when an ordinance regulates a subject matter that a higher law expressly forbids it from regulating. A common example in North Carolina is when a town seeks to ban the sale and possession of firearms. Okay. Towns are authorized to regulate the sale and use of pellet guns, but that's not the same as firearms. And so understanding that difference is important. In any of these scenarios, I would expect that a town attorney will be involved, but it is important for teaching purposes to kind of illustrate how those preemption limitations can affect a local government's ordinance, and and how it all works together. Gotcha. When we teach the topic of preemption, it's helpful to have the following framework. Ask yourself, can we do it? What is the enabling authority? Are we preempted? And is it constitutional? Those are the main questions that an elected official or board in consultation with their attorney would wanna be thinking about when dealing with authorization and preemption issues.

Mhmm. That's right. Is that a state requirement that you have to I'll let you take this from here. It is a requirement. I mean, we would expect our elected officials to be ethical, notwithstanding, statutory requirements. But you are correct. It is so important that the North Carolina General Assembly passed a statute requiring all elected officials to complete at least two hours of ethics training within twelve months of taking office. Gotcha. Now, the league offers this training. We can do it in person. We have an online module that folks can take. There really is no reason for an elected official not to complete A lot of opportunities. Training. Yeah. If they want it to happen, we'll make it happen. Our advancing municipal leaders program has done a great job in the last couple of years bringing this on the road. So I've gone to all parts of our state teaching ethics and helping our elected officials complete this requirement. So let's talk a little bit about what the ethics training includes. This is a preview for those of you who have who have not taken the two hours yet. And if you haven't, I look forward to seeing you soon. So high level, your ethics training is going to cover the difference between what's a legal requirement and what's an ethical standard. And high level a legal requirement is considered kind of the minimum expectation for our elected officials. It's what the law requires. You violate the law, there's going to be a consequence. So the violations of your laws, again, can trigger not just legal consequences but also political consequences and it can erode the public trust. Sure. Yeah. Now so that would be considered we call that the floor. Anything above that, we'll say we aim for our ethics, the ceiling. So we must comply with the law but we aim to be ethical in every decision that we make. So that's kind of a core concept that we'll start our teaching with. Gotcha. We'll talk about things like duty to the public, duty to the board, duty to the office. Those are things we'll talk about in building this kind of foundation. What do we mean by build our duty to the public? Are you there representing just those who voted for you, those who did not vote for you, those who pay their taxes? Right. Right. I mean, in this day and age, a lot of our meetings are streamed online. So behavior isn't observed just by those in your neighborhood Mhmm. In your community and those who voted for you, but it's worldwide. And so I invite elected officials to think about that and to pause and think about how their behavior is reflected on a much larger stage. Gotcha. My hope is that our elected officials, and this is something we talk about in the training, is in that they are not only setting the example in how to conduct themselves in a legal and ethical matter, manner, excuse me, but also be the reason why the next generation of elected officials wants to run for office, not because they're doing something wrong, but because they're doing something right. So moving on from there, we talk about four basic duties. And these duties are actually ethical standards that are codified in the general statute. So I'm going to keep pointing back to the general statutes. One is the duty and some of these are actually enshrined in our state constitution. Okay. So the duty to act with a public purpose. There are two provisions in the state constitution that require, basically all expenditures to be made in support of a public purpose. There's a duty to vote. In North Carolina, the duty to vote is so important that if you fail to vote without being excused, your absence is treated as a yes vote. They call it the default yes rule. Okay. We won't get into the details on that here, but I share that as an example of how important it is to vote. You are elected into office in order to make informed decisions in a transparent way. I sometimes say we're in the decision making business. And so this duty to vote reflects that. You're gonna hear me talk a lot about rules and you're gonna hear me talk a lot about exceptions to the rules. So you have a duty to vote unless you have a conflict of interest. Okay. So that we'll talk about conflicts a little bit more in a moment. Our third duty is the duty to not accept private benefit for public actions. So this is your self dealing statutes, your anti bribery statutes, things of that nature. You can't basically use your position for private gain. Right. That's really what that gets to. That particular rule also talks about accepting favors and gifts. When is it appropriate? When is it not appropriate? For the most part, it's not appropriate. There are some exceptions. But we just want to plant the seed that when someone comes knocking, with a gift or a favor, beware. And then finally, duty to act in a transparent manner. That is your open meetings in your public records law. And I'm going to talk about that as well. So that's that is an overview of what ethics, the training, if you take the two hours of training, that's really what we're going to talk about. Okay. So in addition to completing ethics training, all municipalities must have a code of ethics. That's required by law. So before I talked about kind of a homework assignment of locating your charter, the second homework assignment I would have for an elected official is locate your town's code of ethics. Okay. Rate it. Understand it. Review it as a board at least annually. I recommend making that part of your annual retreat if you have a retreat. Take the time. You can use that to also complete your two hours of ethics. I mean, you could really focus on ethics during your annual retreat. So that's the best practice is to review it on a regular basis, I would say at minimum, on an annual basis. So I've talked about your training. I've talked about your code of ethics. Now we're gonna get into the fun stuff. We're gonna talk about conflicts of interest. Okay. When I talk about conflicts of interest, I sometimes joke that it feels like I'm being a little bit scared straight for elected officials, you know, because there are legal consequences. On the other hand, I feel like Tony Robbins because I'm trying to encourage them to do the good work. But we can't talk about ethics without talking about conflicts of interest. And we can't talk about conflicts of interest without talking about the consequences of violating the law. Okay. They're not just legal but they're also I think much broader than that. It can erode the public trust which is a very important thing for all of us to be mindful of. I won't go into all of the different ways that an elected official can violate the conflict of interest laws. But I do want to touch on a few. A very basic example would be your bribery situation. Right. You cannot accept something of value in exchange for carrying out an official duty or refraining from an official duty or encouraging someone else to do the same. An example that I'll often refer to in in our teachings includes ACC tickets. ACC tickets like it's the currency of influence in the great state of North Carolina. Right? It could be any tickets, fill in the blank tickets. If it's something that's of value, be careful when someone offers that to you with an expectation that you're going to respond in a certain way in your official capacity. Now elected officials will often ask questions about donations to their general campaigns. Okay. Donating to a general campaign is fine so long as it complies with all the other campaign finance laws, it's fine. What's not okay is for an elected official to accept or solicit payments in exchange for their vote or their ability to influence another board member's votes. Okay. Our votes are not for sale. That's important.

So if the intent is clear that they're trying to sway your vote Mhmm. Then, you're in dangerous waters. Another statute talks about what I'll call undue influence. And in concept, you can't use your position of influence to ask employees of the town you represent to do things that benefit you personally. It seems obvious, but it's in the statutes for a reason. What does that mean practically speaking? It means you cannot ask, for example, your public works director to mow your lawn Right. Or your neighbor's lawn or your church's lawn. You can't use your position to say, I'm not going to pay my utility bill because I'm a member of the board. The law doesn't allow for that. Another example is access to confidential information. In a moment, I'm going to talk about closed session and confidential information and information that's not available to the public. But in your official capacity, an elected official will sometimes have access to information that the broader public does not have access to. Okay. You can't use that information for personal gain. So an example would be, let's say, in closed session, your board is having discussions about a local business real or maybe it's a regional business locating to your community, and they want to buy a specific property. And you now know that because of your position on the board, but nobody else outside of the that room knows about it. Okay. You can't take that information and start buying up properties all around there with the expectation that they'll increase in value and you will benefit from it. Gotcha. You can't tell your neighbor or your family members to do the same. That's also a violation. Okay. It's kind of like insider trading and it's not allowed. It's illegal. Okay. And then finally, I want to talk about public contracts because so many of our elected officials will in one way, shape, or form make or administer a contract. I mean, if you're inherited if you've inherited a contract, say from a prior counsel, but you still have to make decisions about it, you're administering that contract. So there are a lot of different ways that an elected official can kind of fall into traps when it comes to public contracts. Right. High level, if an elected official is responsible for making or administering a contract, they cannot receive a direct benefit from it. And the board cannot vote to approve that contract either. Violating that rule is a criminal offense that carries criminal penalties. It's that serious. There are some exceptions. I'll mention one today. And there's a small town exception. And that is if your municipality has a population of 20,000 people or less, then a member on that board can enter through a contract with the municipality. Okay. There are some guardrails. There it can't be more than $60,000 over a rolling twelve month period. Okay. They can't vote on that contract. They can't deliberate or participate and try to influence that contract. And it has to be reported out in the annual statement. So there are a lot of conditions that need to be met in order to satisfy the what we call the small jurisdiction exception to this prohibition of conflicts or direct benefit in public contracts. But

Absolutely. I mean, I think the law acknowledges in certain parts of the state, it's hard to to get the work done without triggering some of these, prohibitions. And so they created that small town exception for that that reason. Okay. Makes sense. Yeah. So those are that's a high level overview of conflicts of interest. We go into much greater detail in our ethics training. But for our listeners and our viewers, especially those of you who are elected officials, I encourage you to think about what I've talked about and certainly reach out if you have any questions. When in doubt, consult with your attorney. Talk to your attorney.

It it is. And it's one that I've observed can be hard for newly elected officials to initially embrace because it's different compared to other sectors in the private sector. For example, there isn't as much of a requirement or expectation to share all of your information with the public. In North Carolina, it's the policy of our state that the public's business is done in an open manner. That's so important that it's codified in our general statutes. We keep pointing to the general statutes, but it's there. I often will talk about transparency being the default rule. And I'll even turn that into a call and response if it makes sense. But it's important. Transparency is the default rule in North Carolina in our municipalities. So I like to look at it in two different ways. We have our open meetings requirements and our public records requirements. And we'll often break those into two separate discussions for teaching purposes. So I'll do that now. In North Carolina, we have the open meetings law that's codified in chapter 142 of the North Carolina general statutes. And it requires meetings to be open to the public, properly noticed, and documented through meeting minutes. High level, that's what they require. Now, there are some exceptions to our meetings being handled in the public. And that would be in the form of a closed session. Right. So, I'll talk about closed session in a moment. But first, let's talk about your notice, your public notice requirements. Okay. Type of notice, and I'll talk about this in a little bit more detail in a moment. But the type of notice will depend on the type of meeting. Is it a regularly scheduled meeting, a special meeting, or an emergency meeting? Depending on the type of meeting, that will dictate what type of notice is given and to whom and under what timeframe. Okay. High level, that's just something to be aware of. Okay. So meeting minutes. All public meetings must be recorded so that there's some long term history for folks to refer to in years to come about what decisions were made, who voted in which direction, etcetera. At minimum, your meeting minutes are going to evidence that the meeting was properly noticed, that you had a quorum. We'll talk about a quorum in a minute. What actions were taken, and the meeting was adjourned. So that's kind of like the basic skeleton, if you will, meeting minutes. Meeting minutes can be typed up. They can be audio recordings. They can be video recordings. And with the advancement of artificial intelligence, I think we're going to see a lot of new practices when it comes to putting minutes together. In concept, it really shouldn't be that hard to put meeting minutes together. Right. So those are the main requirements of your open meetings law. Now what I wanna talk about are closed sessions.

in the general statutes. And I think it's really important in the general statute, I'm not going to cite a lot of law in this podcast, but the one I am going to cite is the closed session statute. It's general statute one forty three dash three one eight point one one. So write that down. You can look it up. It's available for free online. It's important to review it and understand what it means. And certainly, reach out to your attorney or you can reach out to the league with any questions. But you have your general rule and that is all public meetings must be in the open. All meetings and all decisions, all deliberations should be made in the open. Your exception would be a closed session. And these are very specific situations that the General Assembly has deemed appropriate to be discussed in closed session, not available to the public. I won't list all of them, but I'll list my top three. Okay. The top three would be you can go into closed session to prevent disclosure of confidential and non public information, which makes sense because the law prohibits disclosure of that information. Therefore, you should have to go into closed session to discuss that type of information. It's a pretty obvious exception. So is that like personnel records and things like that? Personnel would be the example. Yes. There are other examples, but that, in my opinion, would be the example. Second would be going into closed session to preserve your attorney client privilege. It's very common for our elected boards to go into closed session to give instruction to their attorney or to get advice from the attorney, but have that attorney client discussion. So it's expected that that would be done behind closed doors. And then finally, this isn't the full list, but the one that I wanted to address was going into closed session to consider your performance, qualification or appointments of public employees and public officers. It makes sense that you should be able to have those discussions in closed session. And so the law allows for it. So how do you go into closed session? This is more of a procedural kind of overview, but it comes up. So I'm going to just mention it real quickly. The first thing you do is you have your properly noticed meeting. So let's say it's a regular meeting. And somebody makes a motion to go into closed session. You need to state the purpose of the closed session. You would have to cite the specific statute given the reason to go into closed session. A majority of the board would vote to go into closed session. And assuming that you have the majority vote, you go into closed session, have your discussion, and you come back out into the meeting. And then you would close the closed session and then continue the meeting and then adjourn the regular meeting in this example. But again, it's important that the motion cite one or more of the permissible closed session purposes. This puts the public on notice as to why you're leaving the table and going into that backroom. Okay. And these are things you can say generally versus getting specific about why you're going back here? Yes. There are certain statutes that require you to be a little more specific, depending on the type of exception that you relied upon. But for the most part, if it's in the motion and you would want to work closely with your attorney, If everything's in order, then there really shouldn't be any problems with the motion as stated. So that's where we are. That's the process for going into closed session, coming out of closed session. I mentioned minutes a moment ago. Minutes are supposed to be kept at the closed session as well. There's also something called a general account. And that is a document that would give a person who's not in attendance a reasonable understanding of what transpired. Sometimes we get questions about when those minutes and those general accounts can be disclosed. They can be basically retained until it no longer would frustrate the purpose of the closed session. Okay. So if you have, for example, closed sessions that are specific to, the town's acquisition of property, in that negotiation takes a long time, you can retain those minutes until the deal is done. Okay. Because you wouldn't want anything to unravel that negotiation Sure. By disclosing the general account or the closed session minutes. That would be an example. So high level, practical considerations. And if there's any main point that I'll make when talking about closed session, this is it. Do not deviate from the specific purposes for which you are allowed to go into closed session. It's not if, it's when you will be tempted as a board when you're in closed session to talk about policy issues. The temptation is real. It's understandable. But you must exercise restraint because policy discussions are intended for the open meeting. The public has a right to observe those discussions. So don't put your clerk or your town attorney in a tough spot by deviating from the closed session statute. Right. Okay. Another thing to think about, and it comes up from time to time is what can you disclose

If it involves confidential information or other information that can't be disclosed by statute, then that's that. End of discussion. You cannot disclose it. There are other topics that the law doesn't expressly prohibit you from disclosing even though you wait into closed session. But as we'll often say in our ethics course, just because you can, doesn't mean you should disclose something from your closed session. I think that kind of behavior runs the risk of breaking trust with the public, but also with your fellow board members. Board. If they can't trust that what you talk about in closed session will stay in closed session, it's gonna be really hard to get the important work done. So I encourage folks who might be tempted to share information discussed in a closed session with people not in the room. Think about how that will affect your body as a whole. And think about why the General Assembly initially allowed for that particular conversation to happen in closed session. Right. Okay. That makes sense. Another area that I encourage our elected officials to think about includes simultaneous communications. When I've talked about open meetings, we typically think about a public meeting, like a regularly scheduled meeting. Everybody shows up on time according to the schedule. You start the meeting, have your consent agenda, etcetera. But the open meetings law also applies to simultaneous communications between a majority of the board. And that can include your emails and your text messages, your instant messenger, whatever it may be. And in this day and age when most people communicate via text or email, it's important for folks to understand that if one person, for example, sends an email and a board member and then to another board member. And then that board member decides to include everybody else on the board in the response. And then it results in this kind of back and forth communication. Depending on the duration between those communications and the subject matter of what's being discussed, it could inadvertently

At the same time, those are generally public records that are being generated. So one way or another, the public's going to get access or we'll have at least the right to access that information. But the open meetings law is very clear about simultaneous communications between a majority of the board. And so that's something we need to be careful about. Let's keep going. Let's do it. There's more to it. So when we talk about open meetings, what we're talking about is a public body, which would include our elected boards and a majority of the public body. When you have those two things together, you may have what's considered to be an open meeting that requires public notice. So what happens if you have a majority of the board together and they're out and about let's say they're at the bowling alley having a good time together. That in itself does not violate the open meetings law. Okay. Once one person starts talking about an agenda item or the public's business, well, now now you are violating the open meetings law because you're talking about the public's business. The public hasn't been noticed properly, and they don't have an opportunity to observe. Okay. So the lesson learned there, the main takeaway is we want you to spend time together. I think it's great for fellowship. It's great for folks to spend time together. Just be careful about talking about public business. Now here's another scenario that often comes up. Remember, the threshold is a majority. So a common number in North Carolina is five elected officials with a mayor who votes in the case of a tie. That's a pretty common there are different scenarios configuration, but that's a pretty common one. If you have a majority of that board, so a majority of five is three, more than half of five. If a majority of the board is together talking about the public business as we just discussed that would be in violation of the open meetings law if it wasn't properly noticed. What if two of those five are together talking about the public's business? Technically, that's not in violation of the open meetings law because two is not a majority of five. So there are times when if there is maybe a particularly complicated matter that the town is trying to figure out, sometimes just shy of a majority. So in this example, two of the elected officials can get together and sometimes with the manager or sometimes with the attorney, they call them two on twos or one on ones. They can then talk about those issues without violating the open meetings law. And what we're talking about here kind of overlaps all of that. And that is open meetings law and the formula, if you will, that applies to determine whether the open meetings law applies or whether it's been violated. And that's where the majority number comes in. Public body, majority, public business. If you have those three things together, then it needs to be a properly noticed meeting. Okay. So I just mentioned simultaneous communications. And I just mentioned that the open meetings law applies to public bodies, which is two or more elected officials that are together to carry out public business And public business being transacted or discussed. That's the high level. It's kind of a paraphrasing summary of what the law states. But something to think about is this. The open meetings law does not apply to meetings of professional staff or municipality staff. That's important. So if I'm an attorney and I'm meeting with just department heads and their staff, that meeting is not an official meeting as defined in the public records law. So the public doesn't have a right to attend that meeting. What if that meeting was a virtual meeting? Let's say they use Teams or Zoom, whatever software product they use. And at the beginning of the meeting, somebody turns on an AI device or invites, I think it's called ReadAI or something like that. There's different tools to the meeting and records the meeting, summarizes. It's a handy tool. But what does it create? It creates a public record. So while under the open meetings law, the public doesn't have a right to observe that particular meeting. But if you're using AI to generate a transcript of that very meeting, well, they have another way of getting access to that information, and that's through the Public Records Act. So it's just something to think about. If your team utilizes AI in that way, just understand

Well, great. That's a good segue into the public records law. Okay. So I just finished talking about open meetings law, which is codified under chapter 143 of the North Carolina General Statutes. Now, I'm gonna talk about the public records law which is codified under chapter 132. And under that law, the public has a right to inspect and receive copies of public records. Any person can request these records for any purpose. And the intended use of those records is irrelevant to that right of access. So that's important. As I mean, as PDA, you can't ask the party requesting the records what they intend to do with that information. Right. It's irrelevant. If it's a public record and it's not subject to an exception, then they have a right to inspect it or make a copy of it. It's important for elected officials to understand that public records is defined very broadly. It's not just a piece of paper. It can be electronic recordings, your films, videos, photographs. It can even be and we'll talk about this. Might as well talk about it now. If you're using AI, if your staff is using or if an elected official is using, say, an AI model like chat GPT or Claude or any of those other similar models, the prompts that they put into the AI model, as well as the outputs are arguably public records if they involve the transaction of public business. So we're a loss catching up with technology. We're still figuring this out. But I do anticipate we're going to see more requests for things like prompts and outputs from

I don't want to dissuade or discourage anybody from using artificial intelligence, but it is important for us to be thinking about how this technology intersects with the law. So we've talked about the rule. That is if it's a public record, it's subject to disclosure. That includes the right to inspect, the right to receive copies. There is predictably an exception or I should say exceptions. There are exceptions to the rule. Common exceptions, there are several but I'm going to talk about a few particularly. We have what are called non public records. These are records that the General Assembly has deemed to be nonpublic. They are not subject to disclosure. There's no right of access. But such information may be released at the discretion of the municipality. This could include in limited situations, body ward camera footage. A law enforcement agency in that example may disclose that footage to those depicted or their representatives, but it can only release if it's ordered by the court. So body ward camera is a very statute that we won't get into detail here. But it is an example of something that the General Assembly is treated as a non public record. Certain utility billing information or criminal investigative reports has been treated as non public records. On the other hand, we have what are called confidential records. And release of this information is prohibited. Right. And so some examples of confidential information, you mentioned this earlier, would be personnel matters, personnel records. That's a big one. Personal identifying information like your Social Security numbers, things like that. Sensitive public security information example would be like a blueprint of a water plant. That is considered confidential for security purposes. So understanding the difference between non public and confidential is helpful. I think a lot of this is going to fall on your professional staff to manage. I think that for example, for your record retention requirements that will typically fall on your clerk or designee. But I do think it's important for elected officials to understand the general rule is that the records are subject to disclosure unless specific exceptions prevent disclosure. And from a record retention standpoint, they're probably going to lean heavily on professional staff to make sure that the town is complying with those requirements. Okay. Makes sense. Yeah. So we've been talking about

I'll kind of address those separately, because you have your public meetings, which are defined, by statute. And there are some subsets within the public meetings. And then meeting procedures, which is something that I also teach. We teach we have a whole one hour course. We can do two hours even of content specifically related to meeting procedures. That would include parliamentary procedure, which is something that I enjoy teaching and that I think that elected officials should become familiar with, particularly your mayor because the mayor acts as the presiding officer during your meetings. But let's start with public meetings. We'll start with that. There are basically three categories of public meetings. You've got your regular meeting. Your regular meeting is the one that is most common. It follows a set schedule with a proper public notice. You have special meetings. Special meetings can be called as needed, but they require at least forty eight hours notice, are limited to the stated purpose of the meeting. And then finally, emergency meetings, which are what they are. They're reserved for unforeseen circumstances that require immediate action. That a good example would be a natural disaster or maybe there's a public health emergency or something like that that requires the elected body to get together quickly. And in which case, notice should be provided as soon as practical. We talked about quorum a moment ago, but it is something we typically will talk about when discussing public meetings. And the gist of it is you just need to make sure you have the minimum number of people required to be physically present in order for a meeting to take place. Okay. So what should the formula is you take the number of seats, you subtract any vacancies if there are any, you add the mayor, Whatever that final number is, you take a majority of that number. Okay. So if you to my prior example, if you have five voting members plus the mayor, you take that number. A majority of that number is more than half. So a majority of six is four. That's your quorum. If there's a vacancy, the same situation. Let's say you have a vacancy. So now what you're going to do is just subtract that vacancy. It'll take the four seats that are filled plus the mayor. A majority of five is three. More than half of five. So that's the basic math on quorum. Rarely do you have issues with quorum but it is codified by statute so it's important for you all to understand. Gotcha. Got to get it right. You do. So we've talked about the types of public meetings. Let's talk about two scenarios that could take place in either and mostly regular meetings, but could happen in a special meeting. And that's your public hearing versus a public comment period. Public hearings are typically limited to specific matters such as budgets or zoning ordinances. They're usually there to address a specific issue. And there may be some evidentiary component to it where experts are called to provide evidence and things like that, and then decisions are made. So it's less common than a public comment period. A public comment period is exactly what it sounds like. It's an opportunity for the public to come and talk about more general topics. Your town is required to allow public comment at least once a month or at every meeting if you meet less frequently than that. Okay. So there is a component that requires the public to have the opportunity to address the elected body. Okay. Now, what's important for boards to understand is that they can adopt the statutes to allow a board to adopt reasonable time, place and manner limits on public participation. But it must be done very carefully and it must respect constitutional free speech rights. Okay. It's a whole separate conversation, but I from time to time have to remind, especially newly elected officials who are interested in restricting what one says when they come to a public comment period. Mhmm. Generally speaking, you have very limited authority to do that. Okay. Okay. So,

So at a very basic level, the statutes give broad authority to local governments to create their own rules of procedure so long as they're not inconsistent with the law or a generally accepted parliamentary procedure. So the way that we interpret that and teach it is that our boards have great flexibility in the procedural rules that they adopt to, in effect, carry out their public meetings in an efficient way. Robert's rules of order have been around for a very long time. They're generally intended to facilitate decision making within larger deliberative bodies like the Congress, for example, the United States Congress. So what we see at a local level is kind of usually a pared down version of the full blown Robert's Rules of Orders. Now the UNC School of Government has some suggested rules of procedure for elected boards that we often refer to in our teachings. We'll just kind of lay out the menu. And those are two kind of common options in our state, but there are several other options out there if a board was inclined to look elsewhere. We've even consolidated the rules to a two page handout that our boards can look at in coming up with a basic framework for how to make motions, priority of motions. I do think it's important to understand how parliamentary procedure works and try it out. It's one of those areas that the only way you can get good at it is by practicing. Right. And so I would encourage elected officials and even boards as a whole to try these motions out. Let the presiding officer carry out his or her responsibilities. It's usually the mayor. It could be the mayor pro tem. There's in some situations. But generally speaking, the mayor is the presiding officer. The mayor is the one with the gavel. The mayor can rule on whether a motion is out of order, for example. Okay. In the best of scenarios, everybody will have an equal opportunity to participate and deliberate. Usually, the person who made the initial motion, say something before the board as a whole will vote. And following whether it's Robert's rules or the suggested rules from the UNC School of Government, following those rules is intended to ensure that that all happens smoothly, orderly, and in a way that the public can follow. And a side note, I also think it makes the clerk's job a little bit easier too because they can kind of follow the decision making. Gotcha. Yeah. A common, just kind of pitfall or that I've seen newly elected make is taking a lot of time trying to articulate what their motion is at the table. And the better way to to deal with that is to think about what your motions are gonna be before the meeting. Try to articulate the motion in a sentence or two. Save the longer part of the discussion for your deliberation. Okay. When you're trying to speak to the merits of the motion. So it can be done. I'm a big believer in parliamentary procedure. I think it can be a very good tool. It does take a little bit of practice at first. But once you get it, I think you can really streamline your medians and maybe get out in, you know, at a reasonable hour.

There is. And it's fifth on my list, not because I think it's the least important. In many cases, I would argue that getting your town's financial house in order and keeping it in order is the highest priority. It's hard to do everything else if your finances aren't in order. Right. So that's why I put it in the list. I think it's important for folks to understand what their obligations are and understand the relevant law, the different roles. And we'll talk about this in a moment. I also think it's important for folks to understand who the local government commission is and what their role is. So let's unpack that a little bit. Okay. The Local Government Budget and Fiscal Control Act is the law that governs municipal budgeting. It governs financial administration. It requires each town to appoint a budget officer, to adopt a balanced budget, to meet statutory deadlines, to follow generally accepted accounting principles and to undergo an independent annual audit. I've summarized in one minute a very robust body of law that I would say is really best left to your professionals like finance officers and budget officers. But in our smaller towns, our elected officials sometimes have to wear that hat. So we have to add this to the list of things that they need to learn about in their role. Good thing is that there are many resources out there to help local governments meet their obligations. We've got the local government commission and that's within the office of state treasurer. The league has municipal accounting services and accounting instruction and mentorship programs. Both are award winning programs that I have seen truly help our municipalities of different sizes. So I would highly encourage our listeners and viewers to explore those programs if you're getting your head around budget and finances within your municipality. So let's unpack the budget process just a little bit more. Each spring before April 30, the budget officer shall request and receive complete expenditures of each department in the town for the previous fiscal year and the anticipated expenditures and revenues for the next fiscal year. That's part of the budget process. The budget officer will prepare and submit a new proposal to the entire board and provide a copy of it to the clerk. That must be a balanced budget, and it must be adopted before July 1 each year. Those are high level requirements. There are some quirks and some extensions and things like that. But for the most part, that is the framework, the timeline that our elected officials need to be thinking about. In a council manager form of government, your manager is always going to be the budget officer. In your mayor council forms of government, it will be appointed or decided upon by the board. It's often the mayor, but it could also be an administrator as well. Okay. So we've talked about budget officer. We also have what's called a finance officer, which is defined by statute and required by statute. And they're responsible for keeping the financial accounts for the town in check and for dispersing funds in accordance with the law. So high level each expenditure for the town must be first analyzed to see if it's appropriately authorized by the board, that the funds are appropriately located in the budget and that the funds are available to spend. The finance officer is also responsible for receiving all funds deposited into the town. Okay. There are some internal controls. We're not going to get into that too much today, but there are internal controls in place to minimize things such as embezzlement and fraud that could take place when only one person is responsible for monitoring money coming in and money going out. Right. And then finally, at the end of the year, the town must audit their books, which makes sense. And it must be performed by a qualified outside auditor. It's one that the town has a choice. They can choose who their auditor is. And the audit will review the accuracy and reliability of the town's budget as well as the financial statements of the town. That audit is then provided to the local government commission. The LGC, it's also known as, will then review the audit and provide comments. If the LGC observes a town and determines that they're failing to meet their responsibilities, they can step in, they can take over the books. In the most extreme example, they can recommend to the general assembly that the charter of the town be revoked. And there are recent examples of that happening. So it's important to understand who the LGC is, what their role is, understand that they're there to help. Help. They do have a regulatory role. There is a unit assistance list. This is a list of municipalities that have, at different levels, demonstrated some issues. And the LGC is monitoring them with the goal of getting them off of the list. In fact, I mentioned a moment ago some of the programs the league offers, our goal is the same as theirs. We are trying to get our towns off of the unit assistance list that is maintained by the LGC. So the goal is to keep trying to keep at it. It's hard work, but you have plenty of resources. We're very fortunate in North Carolina and have resources that are intended to help our municipalities keep their financial house in order.

Well, I would say this. As a newly elected official, you're going to be held to a higher standard. Sometimes we'll talk about that as being an especially responsible citizen. So we've talked about aspects of that today. We've talked about conducting yourself in an ethical manner to complying with the law. The minimum standards is complying with the law. To completing your ethics training as required by law, to verifying that you have code of ethics, to taking the time to understand where your authority comes from and carrying out your duties as an elected official, as a board, to understanding that you operate as a board. One person has no more power than an individual citizen. But as a board, you can do great things for your community. This list of five topics, I think, is a good starting point, a good foundation that you can build upon on your journey as an elected official. And I want to keep in mind that the goal for all of these laws really is to establish and maintain the public's trust. And it doesn't take much to lose that trust. But I do believe that if our elected officials follow these legal topics, they educate themselves about the legal topics, topics, that they take advantage of the resources that are available to them, including those offered by the league. I think we're setting ourselves up for a bright future. And I think hopefully the next generation of elected officials are watching and they decide to put

it's okay to make mistakes. This is some some of this is difficult, but, the goal here is to keep your eye on the prize, do the good work that you were elected to do. We are in the decision making business. There are laws and procedures in place to help you with that. And, again, I think, it's an exciting area. I mean, I'm biased because I teach it and I wrote about it. But every time I talk to elected officials and I talk to them almost daily, I'm encouraged. And I think that there's generally, a desire to carry out the law in an ethical way, in a transparent way, in a way that keeps the town's financial, house in order and ensures that the public has an opportunity to observe and be a part of the process.

And, yes, my hope is that people reach out. That's why we're here. So thank you for this opportunity. I've really enjoyed it. Great. Thank you, Ben.