Citizen engagement/Notify Me

A group of local citizen, cycling enthusiasts are currently learning a hard lesson in civic engagement. For years I have encouraged citizens to learn, understand and pay attention to issues facing the town council.. Don't just get involved or interested when it is an issue which affects your "backyard".

As some of you know the town council meeting agenda is published on the town website a few days prior to the actual meeting date ( first and third Tuesday each month). It is there to provide citizens with information about upcoming issues and developments. Accessing this information each month really should become a routine for citizens. When I first took office, would send this info via email, but discontinued this service when the town started doing this. The new town website now has a feature called Notify Me which is a no excuse option for citizens to get info about town.. Too often people get involved or interested because one neighbor learns of an issue and then shares with the neighborhood. Sometimes this occurs well after an issue has been properly discussed and voted on. In most cases the all-knowing neighbor does not have all the facts straight.

This group of cyclists and others interested in the super street intersection configuration on the 55 bypass are now concerned that they will not be able to directly cycle across the bypass in their large packs. They will have to cross using the super street configuration. Well, this super street requirement was put in place in 2008 by NCDOT when the New Hill Place shopping center site plan was approved. Also a condition of the site plan approval was for the developer to have a super street info session for the public, which they did days before the plan was approved.( I don't recall how well attended it was, but it was advertised well). Now almost four years later many are concerned because New Hill Place is actually being built and they claim they knew nothing about it.

So, let's all become well engaged citizens....check out the town meeting agendas, understand the issues and be informed enough to cast an educated vote in local government elections. A good first start is to enroll is Notify Me.