Democracy & Open Government

office hours with Gary Kahn are  Mon -Fri 2-5 pm at Tabbacco Road Chapel Hill. in the Bar Area. to discuss campaign issues anyone might have. Thanks. Gary Kahn.P.s. Now through election day.

Last week I wanted to know what happened at a previous Orange County Commissioner meeting. When I went to the county web-site to read the minutes, the most recent minutes available were from almost two months ago.

I understand that county staff people may be over-burdened and that budgetary concerns have resulted in less staff than we used to have. However, it is essential for effective governance that citizens have timely access to the minutes of meetings.

So I decided to find out how we stacked up. In order of timeliness, here are the winners (municipalities selected more or less randomly).

If we truly believe that citizen involvement is a high priority, our county officials should demand that we have access to the minutes within two weeks of a meeting.

A side note – when I casually googled Forsyth County, I came up with Forsyth County, Georgia and their last available minutes are from 6/10/2014.