Agenda 10-03-19 Item 1 - Discussion on Public Comments at BOCC Meetings

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5 9 Rules of Procedure for the Board of County Commissioners Introduction These rules of procedure were designed for use by a North Caro- lina board of county commissioners. Essentially, the rules are a modified version of Robert's Rules of Order, Revised. Robert's Rules is intended to guide the deliberations of a large legislative body; consequently, it is not always appropriate for a small governing board, which can afford to proceed with much less formality. An- other valuable resource consulted for this revision of the rules was Mason's Manual of Legislative Procedure. Mason's Manual is intended primarily for state legislatures, but its extensive discus- sion of the basic principles of parliamentary law and procedure is valuable for local governing boards as well. These rules apply to all meetings of the Orange County Board of Commissioners at which the Board is empowered to exercise any of the executive, administrative or legislative powers conferred on it by law. The North Carolina law (G.S. 153A-41) permits a board of county commissioners to adopt its own rules of procedure if these conform to "generally accepted principles of parliamentary procedure" and do not conflict with applicable law. Mason's Manual suggests that parliamentary law affecting the work of a board of county commis- sioners can be summarized in ten basic principles: 1. The board can take only those actions that it has authority or jurisdiction to take. A corollary of this principle is that the board's action, to be valid, must not violate any applicable law or constitutional provision. This is simply another manifesta- tion of the familiar legal doctrine that a unit of local govern- ment has only those powers conferred on it by law or necessar- ily implied from some specific grant of power. 2. The board must meet in order to act. Under North Carolina law, the powers conferred on the county governing board are exercised by the county board of commissioners as a group, not its individual members. Therefore, the group must meet in order to act.