North Carolina has a proud 30-year history of almost continuous litigation over legislative and congressional redistricting, described here. The lawsuits for our new decade have started and previous roles have been reversed. Republicans used to complain about maps drawn by … Read more

UPDATE DECEMBER 2015: During the 2015 legislative session, the General Assembly made changes to local sales and use tax allocations. The effective date of the changes is July 1, 2016. For more information on those changes, click here. Note that … Read more

We 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 … Read more

Harry Potter and those Twilight vampires need to move over and make room for a new literary superhero.  The mighty local government tax collector returns to the best seller lists this week after a fourteen-year absence with the release of … Read more

The recession that began in 2008 hit the real estate market particularly hard.  Many projects that had been approved lost their funding or had little market for the housing, offices, and shops that would have been built.  One response to … Read more

Before the 1960s North Carolina had a hodgepodge of local courts below the state superior court. In one place or another there were general county and city courts, county criminal courts, domestic relations courts, juvenile courts and recorders courts. Some … Read more

Prudence serves as a finance officer for a North Carolina county. As a condition of her initial (and continued) employment Prudence is required to obtain and maintain a “true accounting and faithful performance bond” with coverage of up to $50,000. … Read more

Sometimes there just aren’t enough board members to have a meeting. Suppose that a clerk for a North Carolina city or county learns in advance of a meeting that several governing board members have conflicts and will not be able … Read more

Don’t you just love the holiday season? We kick it off with a Thanksgiving feast, exchange presents on Hanukah and Christmas, and then celebrate a fresh start on New Year’s Day. But the fun doesn’t end just because we’ve all … Read more

Most North Carolinians understand that when we mark our ballots for Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan or George Bush or Barack Obama for President, we are not in fact voting for those candidates.  We are, instead, voting for a small … Read more