If you saw the City Council Afternoon Meeting on January 20, 2026 and paid very close attention, you may have heard a passing reference about a scheduled Raleigh City Council Retreat just before council went into closed session. Apparently the retreat is scheduled for January 23 & 24, 2026.
We’d like to tell you more. We’d like you to be able to make plans to attend. Sadly, we can’t and you can’t. There has been NO PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT on the retreat at all to date. All we know from the council meeting on Tuesday is the retreat had originally been planned for out of town but now will be held in Raleigh due to weather concerns.
This is only 3 days notice that a retreat was even scheduled for this weekend and we still don’t know where or when. There is still no published agenda for the retreat. Certainly if there was a plan to hold the event out of town, there should have been a public announcement of it before the last minute cancellation and move back to Raleigh.
These retreats are PUBLIC MEETINGS. The public is invited to attend and sometimes able to watch live online. But, if the city never tells the public about these events how is the public supposed to make plans to attend or watch?
If you check at the bottom of this blog you will see this seems to be an ongoing problem with the city and public notice of their retreats. Check out our previous reports.
As of this writing, there is NOTHING on the city’s Events Calendar for a City Council Retreat. You can see a screenshot of the calendar as of noon on 1/21/26 below.
You can click on the image to go to the City’s Events calendar to see if it has since been updated. Or, Follow this link: City Events Calendar
Livable Raleigh Editorial Team
You may recall council had similar problems with their winter retreat in 2024.
We’ve been waiting patiently for the details to appear on the City’s Events Calendar so we can add the information to our calendar and publicize this important event. With less than three weeks to go before the retreat is scheduled to occur, the City’s Events Calendar still does not give us the time, the place, the agenda or even an indication as to if the event will be live-streamed or recorded for those who cannot make it to the undisclosed location.
And in 2023 as well.
“Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin really stepped in it at the first City Council meeting of 2023. It was announced that Day One of the council’s retreat, an annual event of team-building and setting their collective direction for the year, will be held at an undisclosed location in Durham that has no ability to live stream the event for public access. Worse yet, the venue can’t even record the event for viewing after the fact. So much for improved community engagement!”
If you appreciate the kind of reporting we bring to you
|
Please donate $10 or $20, Thanks for supporting |
 |