Goals team reaches across county, city lines

Issues-based approach is first step in NCACC effort

By Todd McGee
Director of Communications

If North Carolina is to maintain its reputation as having one of the nation’s strongest systems of local government, those local governments will need to strengthen common bonds and identify challenges that they will all face in the future.

As a result, one of the five goals adopted by NCACC Board of Directors during its long-range strategic planning process is for the Association to “facilitate regional and intergovernmental collaboration.”

After the Board formally adopted its goals in October 2005, NCACC Executive Director David F. Thompson charged the staff with the business of creating an implementation plan to achieve the various goals.

Association staff was divided into five teams, with each team tackling one of the goals. This article is the last in a series that examines what each team is envisioning to help achieve the Board of Directors’ adopted vision.

The team has been hard at work in other areas. In January, the team helped organize its first Urban Issues Forum. Roughly 25 county officials representing 10 counties met in Charlotte to discuss court system issues. As demands on the state’s court system have grown, funding has not kept up, and the courts are turning to their local governments to provide additional funding to ease overcrowded dockets.

That meeting was the first in what Paul Meyer, NCACC assistant general counsel and goal team leader, envisions as a series of meetings across the state designed to address various topics of interest to counties. And while the first one was called an Urban Issues Forum, that doesn’t mean that rural counties are being left out. As needs and issues are identified in the future, Meyer said that all counties will be asked to help shape these regional meetings.

“We recognize that North Carolina is not a one-size-fits-all state,” Meyer said. “A major issue in one county might not be a big deal in another county, but that doesn’t make it any less important. Our goal is to give counties and cities a forum to discuss these common problems and issues and try to find the best solutions.”

The issues forums are the first in a series of scheduled seminars and meetings that will lead up to a track of workshops at the 2007 NCACC Annual Conference, all revolving around the theme of improving intergovernmental relations. The workshops will highlight successful intergovernmental collaborations and identify areas where counties, cities and school boards can better work together.