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Legislative communications are worth your time

The Legislators are coming! The Legislators are coming!

Given the state of the economy and the state budget, it is understandable that some of us might have felt a warning was in order in the days leading up to the convening of the 2010 short session. It is apparent from the feedback generated at the Association's district meetings in April that county commissioners from across the state are concerned about possible actions the Legislature could take to balance its budget for 2010-11. Will they try to dig out of their hole by shifting responsibilities to counties, or will they redirect some county revenues to try to balance the state budget? We will find out those answers in the coming weeks.

Regardless of what decisions the General Assembly eventually makes this spring and summer, it is up to us as local elected officials to be involved in this process. The Association has many wonderful tools for us to keep up with the happenings in Raleigh.

Each week, the Association's Government Relations Team, led by Director of Government Relations Kevin Leonard, prepares a Legislative Bulletin that reports on all the activities in the various legislative committees. This summary is mailed and e-mailed on Fridays and is a must-read for county officials. Please make sure you read this carefully each week and be prepared to take any action if it is requested. The information that is contained in the bulletin is very helpful for discussions with your legislators when you see them in the grocery store or at church on the weekends when they return to the district.

The Association also maintains a very active Web site (www.ncacc.org) that is updated daily – sometimes several times a day – with legislative information. If you have not already made the Association's home page a daily part of your Internet ritual, then please bookmark this page and consult it whenever you sign on to the Internet.

If you are into Twitter, the Association utilizes a Twitter page (twitter.com/ncacc) that is updated frequently during the session with the latest happenings from the General Assembly. This is an excellent way to receive almost instantaneous updates about important events at the Legislature.

If a critical piece of legislation emerges, and the Association needs immediate action from county officials, staff will e-mail a Legislative Alert with detailed instructions on what is needed from us. If you receive one of these e-mails, please follow the instructions and take the actions that are proscribed. Do not assume that somebody else will do this. When these alerts are issued, we need all hands on deck. It is easy for a legislator to explain a vote on something if they can say, "well, I never heard from my counties on this issue, so I assumed it wasn't that important."

American author Napoleon Hill once said, "Action is the real measure of intelligence." This session, we need to make sure we take the intelligence we receive from the Association and put it into action.