The city has just issued you a notice of zoning violation. Other folks are doing the same thing you are and none of them have been cited. You believe the citation was prompted by the personal animosity of a city … Read more

Your local government has just awarded a contract for digital imaging software to Super Secret Software, Inc., after considering several proposals submitted in response to your request for proposals. Sour Grapes Software, LLC, one of the vendors who submitted a … Read more

UPDATE September 28, 2016: An updated version of this post has been published and is available here.  Some of the most interesting questions I get are about exposure to human blood. My work in this area predates the current craze … Read more

In this blog post, I mentioned that a local government could obtain a “local act” exempting a privately funded projected from the otherwise applicable bidding requirements. This post is designed for people who may not be familiar with local acts. It … Read more

A city’s governing board wishes to support and promote its downtown area. It wants to install sidewalks and street lighting. It wants to renovate the storefronts that line its main street. It wants to hire personnel to provide additional security … Read more

The clerk to a local governing board writes that her board, like most boards these days, is interested in finding ways to save money.  Two of their ideas deal with maintaining minutes of board meetings.…

How many local government clients are too many? If an attorney represents a county, is that attorney precluded from also representing a city in that county? What about representing multiple counties or multiple cities? These questions are of great concern … Read more

In my last post I defined metadata and summarized the three cases (in other states) that have addressed whether, and to what extent, metadata is a public record. I concluded that post by asking what we might glean from these … Read more

An apparent constitutional difference in filling vacancies to appointed and to elected offices—a difference that raised some puzzling questions—did not faze the North Carolina Supreme Court in its ruling March 12, 2010, in the case of Baxter v. Danny Nicholson, … Read more

On Monday morning the River City newspaper contains a story on the new phenomenon of internet sweepstakes parlors – how they operate, how they may be technically different from video poker, and their proliferation around the state. Towards the end … Read more

[Update: The N.C. Supreme Court issued important ruling on video sweepstakes in 2012 and 2013.  See this post and this post for more details.] Internet sweepstakes operations have continued to mushroom across the state. A recent newspaper article identified eight stand-alone … Read more

The expansion of  a certain nonconforming junkyard and auto salvage yard violates the zoning ordinance, a condition that has existed for some time. Warnings have gone unheeded. The local government has sought to accommodate every promise made that the violator … Read more

[2011 UPDATE: For more detail on this topic, see the following 2011 book: Housing Codes for Repair and Maintenance: Using the General Police Power and Minimum Housing Statutes to Prevent Dwelling Deterioration] An earlier post on minimum housing ordinances (MHOs) … Read more

(Updated March 15, 2010) Is metadata a public record? There is not a clear answer to this question, at least in North Carolina. But that does not mean that public entities should ignore the question. In fact, public officials, particularly … Read more

Government agencies are increasingly recognizing the need to communicate with their constituents and to promote citizen participation in government programs and issues. Government web sites have become standard fare, providing information and mostly one-way communication from the government to the … Read more

With taxpayers across the state still suffering financially, local governments may be forced to rely on foreclosures more than ever to generate vital property tax revenue.  Here are five persistent myths about tax foreclosures that deserve debunking.

Local governments often create committees to carry out a wide variety of functions on behalf of their communities. Who has authority to create committees? What is their status under the open meetings law? Under what rules should they operate? What … Read more

UPDATE: In March 2012, the N.C. Court of Appeals held that the smoking law’s exemption for country clubs extends only to nonprofit country clubs. Edwards v. Morrow, 725 S.E.2d 366 (N.C. App. Mar. 20, 2012), appeal dismissed and review denied, … Read more

UPDATE August 2013: During the 2013 legislative session, the General Assembly enacted S.L. 2013-366, which prohibits a local government from providing health insurance coverage for abortions that is greater than that provided by the State Health Plan for Teachers and … Read more

What’s a “Public Office”? I am often asked to explain what it means to hold a public office. The questioner is sometimes trying to decide whether a particular person must take an oath, which is required of public office-holders.  Or, the person … Read more