North Carolina statutes have specific rules that address calculation of the majority required to approve a variance or to amend a development regulation. The statutes specify how an absent member or a member with a conflict of interest affect the majority required. The statutes also have a special rule that applies to city council members who are present but do not vote on a development regulation amendment.
Posts Tagged ‘Voting’
Calculating the Majority Vote Required for Variances and Development Regulation Amendments
Tuesday, December 7th, 2021Voting Rules for Adopting Ordinances
Wednesday, January 21st, 2015A property owner petitioned for a rezoning in a North Carolina city. The city council voted to send the matter to the planning board for a recommendation, and voted to set the public hearing. Now, following the public hearing, the board is ready vote on the rezoning. Does it take a two-thirds vote for the […]
Do Mayors Have a Duty to Vote?
Thursday, November 7th, 2013North Carolina holds its local government board members’ feet to the fire when it comes to voting. City council members and county commissioners have a legal duty to vote unless they are excused for any of several grounds allowed under the statutes. The statutes do not authorize board members to abstain. In cities, if a […]
Remote Participation in Meetings
Tuesday, August 20th, 2013A local government board member will not be able to attend an upcoming meeting. Can she participate by calling in? Regular blog followers may recall that I have written several posts on this topic. With the benefit of your comments and some additional research, I’ve replaced those blog posts with a Local Government Law Bulletin […]
Protest Petitions No Longer Allowed in North Carolina
Friday, July 19th, 2013UPDATE: Post updated 11/12/21 to incorporate statutory amendments. The zoning protest petition is no longer authorized for use in North Carolina. Even if a zoning regulation still references a supermajority vote requirement if a protest is filed, that is no longer effective. A simple majority of those eligible to vote is sufficient to adopt a […]
The Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Decision
Wednesday, June 26th, 2013An obligation that many North Carolina counties, school boards and cities have worked under since the mid-1960s ended yesterday. You have probably already read about the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, the challenge to the constitutionality of Section 5 of the federal Voting Rights Act — the preclearance requirement […]
Board Member Financial Interest: Mapping the Points on the Continuum
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012We say it until we’re blue in the face: municipal and county governing board members have a duty to vote. There is no authority to abstain, or to be excused for a mere “appearance of impropriety.” Instead, state law is specific about when members can be excused from voting. Two blog posts about these statutes […]
Candidates and Conflicts of Interest – What Happens If You Win?
Wednesday, July 13th, 2011You want to run for city council, but you or your company has a contract with the city (or maybe you want to run to be a county commissioner and the contract is with the county). Can you be a candidate for election? What happens if you win? Sure, you can run. The conflict of […]
Voting and Taking Action in Closed Sessions
Wednesday, May 26th, 2010People sometimes assume that local government boards can never vote or take action in a closed session. That’s not quite true. Consider the following scenario: A city council has gone into a closed session under G.S. 143-318.11(5) and (6) to discuss the short list of candidates for the open city manager position, and to settle […]
Proxy Voting
Friday, December 4th, 2009A recurrent question is whether one governing board member may give his or her proxy to another, when the first member cannot attend a meeting, allowing the proxy holder to vote on behalf of the proxy giver. (The proxy might give specific instructions or leave matters to the discretion of the proxy holder.) Our answer […]
Drawing Electoral Districts to Help Minority Voters and Their Favored Candidates
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009A problem springs up every 10 years, with the new census numbers, in cities, counties, and school units that elect their council members, commissioners, and school board members from districts: how, and how much, to take race into account in drawing district lines.
Board Members Who Serve on Nonprofit Boards – Conflict of Interest?
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009It’s budget season, and several nonprofit organizations hope to receive funding from your city or county to provide programs and services for the benefit of your citizens. An increasingly common situation is that you have one or more members of your city or county governing board who also serve on the boards of some of […]
“Official Conduct” – More on Excusing Board Members From Voting
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009A few of my posts have discussed the limited bases upon which city and county board members may be excused from voting, and the lack of clarity in the statutes about how this should be done. I’ve mostly focused on the statutory provisions dealing with matters involving consideration of a board member’s “own financial interest.” […]
Excusing Board Members From Voting
Wednesday, September 16th, 2009State law creates an affirmative duty for local governing board members to vote on matters that come before the board. Last week’s post discussed provisions that allow members to be excused from voting for specific reasons. In all other cases, the assumption is that they must vote. The statutes are mostly silent about the process […]
Electronic Meetings During the COVID-19 Emergency: Recommended Practices
Thursday, April 9th, 2020[UPDATE: Section 4.31 of Session Law 2020-3 enacted new G.S. 166A-19.24, which imposes a variety of procedural requirements on remote meetings held by public bodies during a state of emergency declared by the Governor or General Assembly. As defined by G.S. 166A-19.24, a “remote meeting” is one at which at least one board member participates […]
Tags:coronavirus, covid-19, Electronic meetings, Meeting notice, open meetings law, Public Comment Periods, public hearings, quorum, Voting
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