Pop quiz time: The General Assembly can unincorporate a city in North Carolina by local act, with or without a vote of the citizens of the city. True or False? The answer is “true.” Faculty members here at the School … Read more

Imagine that a local newspaper has requested the following information from a public agency: “A list of all disciplinary actions taken by the agency during the calendar year 2010 against any and all persons employed by the agency, including the … Read more

Judy Bailey was not just a member of the town council. She was well-known in town for her dog training business and often entertained at local events with her troupe of trained poodles. So it was no surprise when she … Read more

Sometimes an employee simply doesn’t measure up. Poor performance is a common basis for dismissal. Under the personnel privacy laws, when a “disciplinary action” is a dismissal, a copy of the final notice of dismissal “setting forth the specific acts … Read more

Surveys are a valuable tool for local governments and other public agencies. They provide important data that can help agencies make decisions and improve services. Surveys might be designed to get feedback from citizens or employees, or may involve research … Read more

In this blog post about the personnel privacy provisions, I described a scenario in which a North Carolina city receives a request under G.S. 160A-168(b)(11) for a copy of the written notice of the final dismissal of former police chief … Read more

As I have described in several posts (links to these are listed at the end of this post), the legislature’s 2010 amendments to the personnel privacy statutes affecting most North Carolina public employers raised many questions. Several state and local … Read more

Three members of a five-member city council are meeting to discuss city business. Is that a majority? You’d think this would be an easy question, but the answer depends on the context for the question. The basic definition of “majority” … Read more

North Carolina cities have a choice of governance structure: the mayor-council form or the council-manager form. According to the School of Government’s Forms of Government database, 300 cities in North Carolina use the mayor-council form, and 67 of them employ … Read more

In this post about access to emails, I described three categories of public employee emails: 1)emails that are public records and subject to public access; 2) emails that are public records but an exception either prohibits disclosure or eliminates the right … Read more