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6 <br /> members and (ii) exercises or is authorized to exercise a legislative, policy-making, quasi- <br /> judicial, administrative, or advisory function." <br /> With regard to elected bodies there is no question that when there is a quorum present, unless <br /> there is a legal reason for excluding the public, the meeting is a meeting of a public body and <br /> must be open. The murkier issue is with the question of ad hoc attendees to a meeting. If the <br /> ad hoc attendees merely attend a meeting due to their expertise or position in order to discuss <br /> or negotiate issues and were not appointed to do so by any particular entity the meeting likely <br /> does not constitute a meeting of a public body. <br /> There is existing North Carolina case law that provides some insight into what constitutes a <br /> public body with regard to ad hoc membership in a meeting group. In DTH Pub. Corp. v. Univ. <br /> of N. Carolina at Chapel Hill, 128 N.C. App. 534 (1998) the Court noted that in order to <br /> constitute a public body the members of the body must have been appointed by an entity that is <br /> authorized to make appointments. So, for example, if the Board of County Commissioners <br /> appointed its Chair, Manager, and several other staff to form a committee and hold meetings <br /> with the mayor, manager, and staff of a town to discuss a water line and the town likewise took <br /> action to appoint those individuals to do so then the meetings could be meetings of a public <br /> body. This is not absolute, however, and whether it is a public body would depend on the facts <br /> of the individual situation. It's otherwise clear that without that official appointment by an <br /> authorized entity the ad hoc group is not a public body. <br /> What constitutes an official meeting? 143-318.10(d) defines official meeting as a "meeting, <br /> assembly, or gathering together at any time or place or the simultaneous communication by <br /> conference telephone or other electronic means of a majority of the members of a public <br /> body for the purpose of conducting hearings, participating in deliberations, or voting upon <br /> or otherwise transacting the public business within the jurisdiction, real or apparent, of the <br /> public body. However, a social meeting or other informal assembly or gathering together of the <br /> members of a public body does not constitute an official meeting unless called or held to evade <br /> the spirit and purposes of this Article." This would cover most meetings of elected or officially <br /> appointed groups. <br /> I will utilize three examples to describe what is and what is not an official meeting of a public <br /> body. <br /> The first example of what are certainly official meetings of public bodies would include any <br /> scheduled meeting of the Board of County Commissioners (elected), the Orange County <br /> Planning Board (appointed by the Commissioners), the Orange County Board of Equalization <br /> and Review (appointed by the Commissioners), etc. Each of these is a scheduled meeting of a <br /> body comprised of either elected or appointed officials at which the public body will engage in <br /> either"legislative, policy-making, quasi-judicial, administrative, or advisory functions." These <br /> meetings must be open to the public unless the subject matter qualifies for an exception to the <br /> open meetings law. <br /> The second example is of a meeting that is absolutely not a meeting of a public body. In this <br /> example the Planning Director, County Manager, Health Director, and several other staff <br /> members meet to discuss an issue on an upcoming Board of County Commissioners' regular <br /> meeting agenda. The product of the meeting is an advisory memo to the Board of County <br /> Commissioners in which the staff members recommend specific action. This meeting does not <br /> involve elected or appointed officials and is not a regularly scheduled meeting, and further <br />