Chatham Coalition files a public records request

By Jeffrey Starkweather
Posted Wednesday, February 9, 2005

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To: Chatham County Board of Commissioners
Charlie Horne, County Manager

From: The Chatham Coalition
Jeffrey Starkweather, Chair [jeffreystarkweather@earthlink.net]
Sally Kost, Vice Chair [tskost@direcway.com]

Subject: Open request for Public Records

Date: February 8, 2005

On behalf of the citizens of Chatham County who firmly believe that government should do its business openly; who want their elected representatives to act responsibly and fairly; who believe that good government is one that includes its citizens and values the input made by its citizens who are the ones most impacted by commissioner’s decisions; - we hereby request the following:

Pursuant to the North Carolina public records law we hereby request the following public documents:

All documents which support and/or related to Chairman Bunkey Morgan’s proposal to change the impact fee from a county-uniform fee of $1,500 to a fee ranging from $4,000 to zero in four districts across Chatham County. This request includes:

* alll correspondence between the commissioners and county staff;
* all correspondence amongst the commissioners
* all correspondence between any and all outside parties.
* All reports, documents supporting and/or relating to this proposal

That the Board of Commissioners appoint a citizen’s budget advisory board, which would:

* Provide citizen input, from all segments of the county, on budget matters
* Provide citizen input on proposed alternative development fee proposals such as this one proposed by Chairman Morgan, as well as the earlier land transfer tax proposal by Commissioners Cross and Barnes

Given that Board has postponed their decision on the impact fee proposal for only two weeks in order to give citizens time to provide feedback about this proposal, it is imperative that we receive this information in the next three days. The correspondence in electronic format should be quite easy to compile and sent immediately. The reports should also be readily available and ready for my pickup immediately. To the extent possible, we would like to receive electronic versions of these reports. Also, we request that documents be provided to us as they become available and not be delayed because other documents we requested are still being compiled.

If this timetable cannot be met, then we would fully expect that the Board of Commissioners delay a vote on this proposal until these records can be sent to us, disseminated to other interested community groups and reviewed.