Donna Bailey has lived in Raleigh for over 25 years and has been a neighborhood advocate for much of that time. She served as President of the University Park Neighborhood Association and has also been Chair of the Hillsborough-Wade Citizens Advisory Council (CAC). Donna has been very active in educating the public on what is going on within the city and making sure that resident’s voices are heard. Donna is originally from New Jersey but has lived in many other places, including Germany for 10 years.
I would like to correct some statements that were made by Mr. Knight at the Sept 20th Work Session.
Mr. Knight totally twisted the work of the CACs.
Knight said the CACs, by continuing to call themselves CACs, were misleading the public.
The only action that the city council took almost 3 years ago was to DEFUND the CACs.
Knight said that the CAC’s were self-elected, self-selected, exclusive and inappropriate.
The defunding of the CAC’s did not stop the mission of the CAC’s but did create a HUGE vacuum of information for citizens. It is unfortunate, that one group of people, black residents of Raleigh, were especially affected by the defunding of CAC’s. Only ONE black CAC is still active so there is a huge VOID in many parts of Raleigh.
He said the one vital thing that CAC’s were doing was voting on other people’s property rights without being elected to do so.
The only one misleading the public is Knight.
CACs were intentionally designed by the city to be self-elected instead of appointed by the Council to be TRUE citizen representation.
CACs were assigned the responsibility of hearing and voting on rezoning cases by the City.
It was a non-binding, advisory vote intended to convey the thoughts of the nearby neighborhoods.
As to property rights, if a property is under consideration for rezoning, the property owner is seeking additional entitlement. NO one is voting on their existing property rights. They are voting to express an opinion and give feedback on expanding the property rights of their neighbors.
It’s disturbing that a City Councilor can be so ill-informed about one of his main job responsibilities.
Read about more of David Knight’s LIES here: David Knight is having a terrible, no good, very bad week.