More on Advertising Tax Liens

It’s March, which means in addition to finalizing your NCAA bracket sheets you might also be finalizing your local government’s delinquent property tax advertisement.  These ads must be published between March 1 and June 30 in a newspaper having a “general circulation” in your jurisdiction.

I’ve answered many of the biggest questions about these ads here and here. But my in box continues to be filled with advertising queries.  Today’s post answers some of these new questions and reviews legislation on this topic filed this session at the General Assembly. Read more »

Conveyance of Local Government Property to Nonprofit EDC for Industrial Park

Ray Kinsella leads the nonprofit economic development corporation (the “EDC”) that was jointly formed by the county and its largest city in the early 2000s, and that is now governed by an independent board of directors. Ray has heard some optimistic forecasts of “re-shoring” of manufacturing facilities to the United States, and he has a plan to take advantage of the possible trend. He proposes for the EDC to build a new industrial park with the help of the county and city. Upon completion of the park, Ray believes the available land with new infrastructure will attract manufacturing facilities to the local area.

The EDC hasn’t amassed enough privately-raised capital to undertake the project on its own, and private developers and investors don’t have an appetite for the project, so Ray’s plan depends on direct local government support. Ray proposes for the county to contribute the land for the park by conveying a 500-acre tract of land, which the county already owns, to the EDC for one dollar. The tract lies outside of city limits, but Ray thinks he can convince the city to provide water and sewer. Ray plans to market the tract to manufacturing companies, and when a company decides to locate in the park, the EDC will sell the required land to the company. Ray hopes the EDC can keep the proceeds from any sale, and then the EDC would use those retained proceeds for future economic development activities.

Is the EDC’s proposed structure allowable? In a word, no. Read more »

Determining Local Board of Elections Director’s Salary

A county’s board of commissioners is required to provide “reasonable and adequate funds necessary” to support the functions of the county board of elections, “including reasonable and just compensation of the director of elections.” G.S. 163-37. In Gilbert v. Guilford County, No. COA14-523 (Dec. 16, 2014), the North Carolina Court of Appeals recently affirmed a trial court ruling that Guilford County had failed to set an appropriate salary for its elections director. The facts and procedural history of the case make it somewhat unique. The opinion, however, provides some guidance to a county board of commissioners about the contours of its authority to set its elections director’s compensation. This post summarizes the court’s holding and details factors county commissioners should consider in determining an appropriate salary. Read more »

Using Private Email for Public Business: Is it Illegal in North Carolina?

News about Hillary Clinton’s exclusive use of private emails and a “homebrew” server raised both political and legal issues. I’ll leave the political issues to the pundits, and I’m not an expert in federal records retention requirements. But I thought our readers might be interested in how these issues would play out under North Carolina’s public records law. Read more »

North Carolina Public School Teachers and the Status of Tenure

Update February 2017:  In April 2016 the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled on the appeal in this case.  Its decision focused on the portion of the 2013 legislation that provided that teachers who had already achieved tenure at the time of the enactment of the legislation would lose it in 2018, after which time no teachers would have tenure.  The state supreme court held that the legislation’s attempt to take the tenure away from teachers who had already earned it amounted to an unconstitutional impairment of contact and could not be enforced.

Every once in a while, the North Carolina General Assembly makes a major change in some big aspect of teacher employment in our public schools.  It did it again in 2013, making changes as sweeping as any in the past.  Those changes are now being considered by the appellate courts and the outcome remains to be seen.

In 1955 the General Assembly ended all existing contracts with teachers, saying: “The contracts of all principals and teachers now employed in the public schools of North Carolina are hereby terminated as of the end of the school term 1954-1955.”  The legislation put all teachers on one-year contracts renewable in the discretion of the county board of education.  Starting that year, the board had to consider each teacher individually at the end of each school year and decide whether to renew or not.  In effect, each year constituted a new decision on whether to continue to employ each teacher.  It’s hard to image a system further removed from a tenure system than that.  Without a new decision “yes” for a specific teacher, the renewal answer for that teacher was “no.” Read more »

Law Enforcement Video Camera Records: An Ongoing National Debate About Transparency

In my post here, I described how North Carolina’s public records laws may apply to law enforcement body and vehicle video camera records. [I’ve recently updated that post to note a newly promulgated records retention standard for these records.] The push for transparency and for more documentation of law enforcement-citizen interactions through the use of video cameras continues. And though there may be some consensus about the benefit of using vehicle and body cameras, there remains significant disagreement about policies for their retention and use, and especially regarding their release to the public. The technology is available and simple to use, but its use raises complicated operational and policy issues. Read more »

County Tax Websites and Public Records Law

[UPDATE:  S.L. 2015-225 limits disclosure of law enforcement officer information but does not explicitly affect county tax websites.  My colleague Frayda Bluestein blogs about the new law here.)

Most of North Carolina’s 100 counties maintain tax websites that allow users to search for property information by name and address.  Even tiny Graham County (population 8,800) offers on-line access to its tax records.  Larger counties have more elaborate websites with more information available.  Durham County, for example, offers on-line access not only to photos of properties but also maps, past sale prices, and building permits.

I get lots of questions about what may, must, and cannot be made available via local government tax websites.  Some of them were spurred by legislation proposed last summer that would have required counties to remove from their websites information pertaining to law enforcement officials.

Here are my thoughts on county tax websites. Read more »