City-County Consolidation in North Carolina

Use of a commission or commissions

Normally, when a city and county undertake a consolidation effort, the governing boards appoint one or sometimes two special commissions to take charge of the process.  (Throughout this discussion, this commission or commissions will be called a charter commission.)  Typically, a charter commission’s work falls into two stages. First is a thorough study of existing governmental arrangements and services, to give commission members a better understanding of the issues and opportunities involved in consolidation.  In some instances the existing governing boards have created a separate commission for this part of the process and charged it with determining whether consolidation would be feasible and beneficial.  Should the answer to either question be “no,” the effort would probably stop at that point.  The second stage is developing a detailed plan for consolidation, which is incorporated into a proposed charter for the government.  This stage usually involves preparing a draft charter, holding public hearings on the draft and giving briefings on the draft to the existing governing boards, and then revising the draft on the basis of comments from the public hearings and from current elected officials.  Once the charter is complete and a referendum called, the commission’s work is normally done.  Some other group is responsible for marshalling electoral support for the proposal.

Most commonly, a single commission has been created to lead the effort, and it undertakes both of the tasks set out above.  This was the model used in Charlotte-Mecklenburg I, in Wilmington-New Hanover I and III, in Durham I, and in Asheville-Buncombe.  In three of the efforts – Wilmington-New Hanover II, Charlotte-Mecklenburg II, and Durham II – the work was divided between two separate commissions.  Charlotte-Mecklenburg II followed a unique approach by having two commissions involved in the charter drafting – the first to prepare a draft charter, and the second to hold hearings on and revise the draft.  Although it was unplanned, Wilmington-New Hanover II essentially worked out the same way.  The charter commission’s draft was eccentric, including a number of detailed administrative provisions that were not within North Carolina norms and also including a few provisions that were inconsistent with the state constitution.  As a result the two governing boards appointed a joint committee that substantially rewrote the commission’s charter, making many substantive changes.  The organizational structure in each of the eight significant North Carolina efforts is briefly summarized at the end of this paper.

In most instances the members of the commission or commissions are citizens, often representative of specific governments, geographic areas, or interest groups.  Two of the Wilmington-New Hanover efforts, however, have relied upon the existing elected officials.  In Wilmington-New Hanover II, as noted just above, the final charter was prepared by a joint committee of the city council and board of county commissioners.  Perhaps as a result of this experience, the charter commission established for Wilmington-New Hanover III was comprised solely of members of the two governing boards.

Creation of the commission or commissions

A local government, or group of local governments, does not need specific legislative authority to create a commission to study a subject and make proposals, but legislation is needed in order to call a referendum on whatever is proposed.  Therefore, in most of the earlier efforts, the charter commission was established by, or authorized by, direct legislation that also authorized a referendum on the commission’s proposed charter.  When G.S. Chapter 153A, the current County Government chapter of the General Statutes, was enacted in 1973, however, it included Article 20 (G.S. 153A-401 through -405), which authorizes two or more local governments to create “charter or governmental study commissions.”  This statute, in G.S. 153A-405, authorizes the local governments creating such a commission to give to the commission authority to call a referendum on any consolidation plan authored by the commission.  As a result, after this statute was enacted each of the efforts – with one exception – has been guided by a charter commission created by the county and city rather than one created by the General Assembly.  (The exception was Asheville-Buncombe.  The consolidation effort in that community was pushed by the legislative delegation, rather than the city and county, and a charter commission might never have been created if the matter had been left entirely to the two local governments.)

There are two points worth noting about charter commissions and referendums.  First, it is only a commission that can call a referendum on a consolidation proposal.  There is no legislative authority for the county or city governing boards to call for such a vote.  That is why in Wilmington-New Hanover III the city and county governing boards formally created a charter commission and then named themselves as its members, rather than just name a joint committee.

Second, it is up to the two governing boards as to whether a charter commission is given the power to call a referendum.  In the two most recent efforts, the existing boards created a charter commission but did not authorize it to call a referendum.  That power was to be given to the commission only if the two boards approved the consolidation proposal.  In each case the boards did not approve the proposal, and the power to call a referendum was never given to the charter commission.

Staffing

Most of the consolidation efforts have required professional assistance for the commission.  In two or three of the efforts that professional assistance has come from the existing legal staff of the county and city, and from high-level administrative employees.  More commonly, the commission has been given the authority to and has engaged outside consulting help.

In addition to professional services, most of the charter commissions have found need for administrative services as well.  Sometimes the city or county will provide an existing employee for this work, but it has more often been necessary for a charter commission to hire its own employee or employees.

Funding for these staffing costs and for all the other costs incurred by a charter commission normally comes from the city and county.

The Charter

The principal product of each consolidation effort has been a proposed charter, embodying the consolidation plan agreed to by the charter commission.  (In North Carolina practice, all cities and towns have a charter, enacted by the General Assembly.  Counties do not have formal charters, but each county is subject to a cluster of special legislation enacted by the General Assembly over the decades; although not grouped into a single document and called a charter, the cluster of legislation specific to any county is essentially equivalent to a charter.)  This charter must eventually be enacted into law by the General Assembly before consolidation can actually occur.  In a couple of the early efforts, the General Assembly acted before the referendum, but more commonly the plan has been to seek legislative enactment only if the referendum is successful.

The charter is the legal document that creates the new consolidated government.  After that foundational step, the most important provisions in the charter set out the structure of the new government’s governing board and the form of its administration.  Next, there are a number of ways in which the law regulating counties and the comparable law regulating cities are different from each other, and any charter commission must choose which model to follow.  For example, county commissions and city councils have slightly different rules on quorums and voting, and the commission must pick one or the other (or come up with a third, and new, choice).  The charter includes the commission’s choices on matters of this sort.  In addition, most counties and, even more, cities are subject to a number of existing provisions enacted by the General Assembly and specific to the county or city; for cities, these provisions are often included in the existing city charter.  For example, a county or city might have special rules for making purchases or levying special assessments, or be subject to a civil service regime for public safety employees.  Usually a charter commission will decide whether to bring these provisions forward to the consolidated government, and if the decision is to do so, most often these existing legislative provisions are included in the proposed charter.

An important area that normally is not included in the charter is the departmental structure of the consolidated government.  Because the charter will eventually be a legislative act, it can only be amended by a second legislative act.  Each of the charter commissions has decided that the governing board of the new government should have the freedom to organize and reorganize the government without need for legislative approval, and so the departmental structure has been left to the governing board rather than set out in the charter.  (This is the pattern for existing city charters as well.)

Any North Carolina local government can rely on the generous provisions of the general law for most of its necessary legal authority, and that is true for a consolidated government.  In the consolidation efforts from the 1970s, some of today’s general law did not exist and therefore comparable provisions were included in the proposed charters from that decade.  This includes detailed budgeting and fiscal control provisions and detailed election provisions.  In the intervening years, these provisions have been added to the general law and consolidated government charters no longer need to address them.

Finally, there are two sets of charter provisions that are worth note that have been part of almost all of the eight consolidation efforts since 1970.  First, under existing law a city council or the city’s voters can amend the city’s charter to make certain specified changes in the structure of the city’s governing board or its form of administration.  (This set of statutes is the subject of detailed treatment in the School of Government website Forms of North Carolina City Government. Counties do not enjoy as broad an authority to restructure themselves, and any charter commission needs to decide which model, if either, to follow.  The various commissions have each chosen to follow the city model, as far as listing the changes that may be made, but have also chosen to require that any changes be approved by the voters and not simply by the governing board.

Second, almost every one of the proposed charters has included a provision that requires the approval of the consolidated government’s governing board before any new political subdivision may be created within the county.  Such a provision would affect political subdivisions that are created by state executive agencies, such as sanitary districts, or by agreement among local governments, such as water and sewer authorities, but it would be irrelevant, despite its language, to the General Assembly’s power to establish new political subdivisions, such as additional towns.

The Referendum

The North Carolina constitution does not require voter approval simply to merge two local governmental entities; in a number of counties, for example, two or more local school administrative units have been merged by direct legislative act, without any referendum in the county.  If, however, the merger of two governments involves the abolition of one of the governments – as is the normal structure for a city-county consolidation in North Carolina – and if that abolished government has outstanding general obligation debt, the new government may not, under the state constitution, assume legal responsibility for that general obligation debt without the approval of its voters.  Because each of the cities that has been involved in a consolidation effort over the past forty years had a significant amount of outstanding general obligation debt, and because the proposal was for this debt to be assumed by the consolidated government, for those reasons a referendum was constitutionally necessary in each case.  (The sample ballot language set out in G.S. 153A-405(b) is based on this constitutional need for voter approval to assume existing indebtedness.)

If there is to be a referendum, what majority is necessary for passage?  At least three different majority requirements are possible:

1. A majority of those voting, countywide.
2. A concurrent majority – those voting countywide and those voting within the city.
3. A different concurrent majority – those voting within the city, and those voting in the county but outside the city, either in the unincorporated area or in one of the smaller municipalities in the county.

Under G.S. 153A-405, any proposal to consolidate a city with a county needs only the first majority – a majority of those voting in the referendum – and that has been the majority required in five of the six efforts that have been put to a vote.  In Asheville-Buncombe the local legislation that created the charter commission and called for the referendum required that any proposal receive the third sort of majority in order to be considered approved – a majority inside the city of Asheville and a majority of those voting who were resident outside of Asheville.  Any future effort that wishes to require either this or the other sort of concurrent majority will need special enabling legislation, as was done with Asheville-Buncombe.

How long a process?

If a community decides to undertake a consolidation effort, how long should it expect the process to take?  Based on the experiences in the eight consolidation efforts summarized on this website, a good guess would be 18 months or more, although it can be done in a year or less.

If the consolidation effort includes a study of the existing governments, that study alone will probably take nine to twelve months.  The actual drafting of the charter can then be done in another four to six months, with additional time necessary for public hearings and reconsideration of items brought up in the hearings.  The timeline for each of the eight consolidation efforts is set out at the end of the description of the structure of that effort.

The Structure and Timeline of the Eight Consolidation Efforts

Charlotte-Mecklenburg I (1969-1971)

Structure

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Charter Commission was created by Chapter 67 of the 1969 Session Laws of North Carolina; the terms of the local act had been negotiated locally for several months beforehand.  The legislation created an 18-member commission, appointed as follows:

• The mayor of Charlotte was to appoint five members, with the approval of the city council.
• The chair of the Mecklenburg county board of commissioners was to appoint five members, with the approval of the board of commissioners.  Three of these appointees were to be from Charlotte and two were to be residents of the unincorporated area of the county.
• The mayor of each of the five smaller towns in the county was to appoint one member, with the approval of each respective governing board.  (The Town of Mint Hill had not yet been incorporated.)
• The mayor of Charlotte and the chair of the county board of commissioners were to jointly appoint a chair for the Charter Commission.
• The mayor of Charlotte and the chair of the county board of commissioners were each named as ex officio members of the Charter Commission, but without the right to vote.  (As a practical matter, neither the mayor nor the chair of the board of commissioners took an active part in the Charter Commission’s work.)

In addition the legislation created a Citizen’s Review Committee, with 51 members appointed as follows:

• The mayor of Charlotte was to appoint 20 members.
• The chair of the Mecklenburg county board of commissioners was to appoint 20 members.
• The mayor of each of the five smaller towns in the county was to appoint two members.
• The chair of the Charter Commission was to serve as chair of the Citizen’s Review Committee.

The legislation directed the Charter Commission, once it had completed a proposed charter, to submit it to the Review Committee, which was to be given 60 days to comment upon and make recommendations about the proposed charter.

The Charter Commission undertook a detailed study of the existing structure of local government in Mecklenburg county and chose to involve the members of the Review Committee in that study.  The Commission had contracted with the Institute of Government of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for staff work, and Institute faculty prepared some 65 special reports on the various functions and activities of local government within the county.  (These reports are listed in Appendix C of the Commission’s report.)  The Commission established five committees to receive and hold public hearings on these reports, with three Commission members and 10 Review Committee members on each committee.  The five committees were:

• Administrative and Regulatory Functions and Activities
• Health, Education, and Welfare
• Planning and Regulation of the Physical Environment
• Public Safety
• Public Works, Utilities, and Enterprises.

In addition, the Commission established two special committees, one on Life and Government and a second on Elected Representation.

Timeline

The legislation establishing the Charter Commission was ratified on 12 March 1969.  The various officials made their appointments to the Commission over the next two months, and the Commission held its organizational meeting on 19 May 1969.

During the summer of 1969 the Commission contracted for staff services with the Institute of Government of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and hired local staff – an associate director and office staff.  In August and October the Commission held background seminars, the first on the structure of government within Mecklenburg county and the second on consolidation efforts in other states.

For the next several months the Commission and its committees focused on their study of the existing functions and activities of local government within the county and their study of possibilities for electoral representation within the consolidated government.  The various committees held public hearings and prepared their recommendations from the late winter of 1970 through the summer.

The Commission began the task of drafting a charter for a consolidated government in May 1970 and completed a draft the succeeding October.  This draft was reviewed by the Citizen’s Review Committee and others, and the Commission prepared a second draft in late November.  After a further review, the Commission on 26 January 1971 approved the final draft of the proposed charter and set the date – in late March – for the referendum on consolidation.

The Commission completed its work about 20 months after its organizational meeting.

Wilmington-New Hanover I (1970-1973)

Structure

The Wilmington-New Hanover Charter Commission was established in 1970 by joint action of the Wilmington city council and New Hanover county board of commissioners.  It initially had 14 members, appointed as follows:

• the chair, appointed jointly by the city council and county board of commissioners;
• five members appointed by the county board of commissioners;
• five members appointed by the city council;
• three members, one each appointed by the councils of the beach towns – Wrightsville Beach, Carolina Beach, and Kure Beach.

Subsequently, the city and county agreed to expand the membership by four additional members, who were appointed jointly by the council and board of commissioners.

The two governing boards also established a Citizens Review Committee, with 42 members.  The Wilmington city council and the New Hanover county board of commissioners each appointed 18 members; and the councils of the three beach towns each appointed two members.

The Charter Commission created five committees to undertake the study phase of its work:

• Health, Education, and Welfare;
• Public Safety;
• Planning and Regulation of the Physical Environment;
• Public Works, Utilities, and Enterprises;
• Administrative and Regulatory Functions and Service Activities.

The full commission focused on more fundamental issues – the form of government, the size of the governing body and their manner of election, and financing issues. 

To assist it in its work, the Charter Commission employed an executive director, an attorney, and a secretary; in addition, it contracted for services with the Institute of Government of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Timeline

The Wilmington city council and New Hanover board of commissioners established the Charter Commission in July 1970, and the appointments to the Commission were made shortly thereafter.  The Commission spent the remainder of the summer developing its organization and arranging for staffing, and the executive director began work that October.

During the next several months the executive director prepared a series of reports on the various functions of county and city government, and these were the subject of committee meetings and public hearings.  This phase continued through July 1971.  Concurrently, and through September 1971, the full Commission considered certain fundamental questions – the form of government, the size and manner of election of the governing board, and issues concerned with financing the consolidated government.

The Commission released a first draft of a proposed charter for a consolidated government on 1 October 1971; the Commission reviewed the draft for several weeks and issued a second draft on 15 November 1971.  This draft was the basis for several public hearings that continued into January 1972, and the Commission made its final changes on 22 February 1972.  At that time the referendum was scheduled for November 1972, but in June the Commission met again and rescheduled the referendum for 27 February 1973.

The Commission completed its work about two years after its organizational meeting.

Durham I (1971-1974)

Structure

The Durham City-County Charter Commission, established by 1971 special legislation, had 42 members.  The chair was jointly appointed by the mayor of Durham and the chair of the county commissioners.  Eighteen other groups or organizations were responsible for appointing the other 41 members, each group or organization appointing between one and eight members.  (Both the report of the Charter Commission and the Proposed Charter prepared by the Charter Commission list the various appointing groups and organizations.)

The Charter Commission divided its work into two phases.  The first was a study of the existing county and city governments, followed by the making of a set of preliminary decisions about the structure, organization, and powers of the proposed consolidated government.  For this phase of its work, the Charter Commission created six committees:

• Public Works, Utilities, and Enterprises;
• Public Safety;
• Governmental Structure and Representation;
• Planning and Regulation of the Physical Environment;
• Health, Education, and Welfare;
• Administrative and Regulatory Functions and Service Activities.

To assist it in this phase of its work, the Charter Commission contracted with Public Research and Management, Inc., an Atlanta-based consulting firm, and with the Institute of Government of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The second phase was the drafting of the actual proposed charter.  The committees continued to meet during this phase, to review the draft language and make recommendations to the full Commission.  The Institute of Government continued to provide staff support in this phase of the Commission’s work.

The Charter Commission also created an executive committee.  Its main responsibilities were administrative and organizational matters, but it also took the lead in working out the details of Chapter 9 of the proposed charter, which prohibited discrimination in employment, public accommodations, and housing, and which established an administrative structure and process to deal with alleged violations.

Timeline

The legislation creating the Charter Commission was ratified on 17 June 1971. The various groups and organizations made their appointments to the Commission over the next several months, and the Commission held its organizational meeting on 21 September 1971.

For the next several months the Commission and its committees focused on their study of the existing functions and activities of local government within the county and their development of preliminary decisions about the structure, organization, and powers of the consolidated government.  This process led to the preparation of an initial discussion draft for the proposed charter, which was issued on 1 September 1972.

During the fall of 1972 the Commission and its committees reviewed the first draft and met with local officials and representatives of the various organizations that had made appointments to the Commission.  As a result, a second draft was prepared of the proposed charter and approved by the Commission at the end of November, 1972.  This draft was the subject of public hearings held by the Commission from December, 1972, through February, 1973.  Once the hearings were completed, the Commission again reviewed and revised the proposed charter, with the exception of Chapter 9, which prohibited discrimination in employment, public accommodations, and housing.

The Commission took a recess in its work at this point, from May until November 1973.  At that time the chair convened the executive committee to try to reach agreement on Chapter 9, and after a series of meetings over three months, the executive committee agreed upon a revised text of the Chapter.  At this point the full Commission was able to quickly finish its work, and it approved a final draft on 7 February 1974.

The proposed charter and companion legislation was approved by the General Assembly in March, 1974, and the consolidation referendum was scheduled for 10 September 1974.

The Commission completed its work about 30 months after its organizational meeting.

Asheville-Buncombe (1981-1982)

Structure

The Asheville-Buncombe Charter Commission, established by 1981 special legislation, had 21 members.  Six each were appointed by the Buncombe county board of commissioners and the Asheville city council, three were appointed by the members of the General Assembly representing Buncombe county, one each were appointed by the councils of each of the five other incorporated towns in Buncombe county, and these 20 members were to appoint the 21^st.

The Charter Commission operated under a tight time schedule.  The legislation establishing the Commission directed that it organize in early September 1981 and produce a proposed charter no more than a year later.  The Commission organized into five committees – Form and Structure, Public Works and Public Enterprises, Finance, Personnel Administration and Regulatory Functions, and General Functions and Services – and these committees met through the fall and winter to provide preliminary recommendations to the full Commission.

To assist it in its work, the Charter Commission contracted with the Land-of-Sky Regional Council, the lead regional agency for the state’s Region B, for administrative services; and with the Institute of Government of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for legal services.

Timeline

The legislation creating the Charter Commission was ratified on 2 July 1981. The various appointing entities made their appointments to the Commission over the next two months, and the Commission held its organizational meeting in September 1981.

• The legislation set out a specific timetable for Commission action, as follows:
• Organizational meeting – Between 1 September and 15 September 1981.
• Issuance of preliminary charter – By 15 April 1982.
• Public hearings on preliminary charter – Begin in May 1982.
• Issue final report – By 1 September 1982.

The Commission met each of the legislative deadlines, holding five public hearings between 27 May and 10 June 1982.

The legislation also directed that the Commission’s proposed charter be placed on the ballot at the general election in November 1982.

The Commission completed its work in slightly less than 12 months after its organizational meeting.

Wilmington-New Hanover II (1984-1987)

Structure.

Three entities were involved in the process that culminated with a November 1987 vote on consolidation of Wilmington and New Hanover county.

The first entity was the New Hanover Governmental Units Consolidation Study Commission, jointly created in June and July 1984 by the county and all the cities and towns in the county.  Its responsibility was to consider the desirability and political feasibility of city-county consolidation, and it issued a report at the end of 1985 recommending that an effort at consolidation go forward.  The majority of the Commission recommended that all four of the municipalities in the county be part of the consolidation; the minority, comprised of the Commission members from the three beach towns, supported consolidation of Wilmington and the county but not the inclusion of the beach towns.

This report led to the second entity, the Governmental Consolidation Charter Commission, created by Wilmington and New Hanover county, with representation from but not the formal support of the three beach towns.  The Charter Commission had fifteen members – six appointed by the board of county commissioners, six appointed by the Wilmington city council, and one each appointed by the governing boards of the three beach towns.

The Charter Commission was appointed in early 1986 and began work at the end of March, 1986.  It completed its proposed charter and submitted it to the county and city governing boards in mid-November, just eight months later.

To aid it in its work, the Charter Commission created four committees to review and make recommendations concerning the existing functions of county and city government.  The committees were Government and Management Structures, Public Safety, Planning and Finance, and Public Works and Services.  (A fifth committee, on the transition, was created later.)  In addition, the city attorney and county attorney provided some staff services to the Commission, although the Commission members ultimately drafted their proposed charter themselves.  The Charter Commission was also able to make use of the extensive report issued by the earlier Consolidation Study Commission, relieving the Charter Commission of the need for an extensive study of the existing governmental arrangements within New Hanover county.

Once they had received the Charter Commission’s proposed charter, the board of county commissioners and the city council created a joint committee, with three members from each governing board, to review the proposal and develop a final charter.  This committee worked over the next six months, making a number of significant modifications to the proposed charter, and it was the joint committee’s charter that went before the voters in October 1987.

Timeline

The first entity, the Consolidation Study Commission, was formed in the summer of 1984 and worked through the end of 1985.  The Wilmington city council and New Hanover board of commissioners then established the Charter Commission in early 1986, and the appointments to the Commission were made by mid-March.

During the next several months the various committees prepared their recommendations, which were presented to the full Commission as they became available.  This phase continued through September 1986, when a first draft was largely complete.

The Commission held a public hearing on its proposals in mid-September, then spent the next two months fine-tuning the draft of the charter.  The final draft was presented to the two governing boards on 18 November 1986, just eight months after the Charter Commission first met.

The two governing boards decided during the succeeding month to appoint a joint committee to review and modify the Commission’s proposed charter.  That group began work in January and continued into June 1987.  Its draft was then sent to the General Assembly, which enacted it in July, 1987, setting up a fall 1987 referendum.  Thus, the entire process took almost three years.

Wilmington-New Hanover III (1995)

Structure

In the 1987 effort in New Hanover county, the city council and board of county commissioners appointed a joint committee that significantly revised the consolidation charter proposed by the Charter Commission; it was the revised charter that went before the voters.  With that experience in mind, when the city and county decided to give consolidation another look in 1994 and 1995, they skipped the step of the separate charter commission.  Rather, the two boards constituted themselves a Charter Commission and developed a proposed charter, using county and city staff as staff for the Commission.

The joint resolutions constituting the Charter Commission were adopted in February 1995.  By using the earlier charters proposed for Wilmington and New Hanover county and looking at the experiences of other North Carolina counties, the Charter Commission was able to produce a first draft of a charter by early June and a final draft by early August.

Timeline

The Wilmington city council and New Hanover board of commissioners established themselves as a Charter Commission at the end of February 1995.  They produced a draft charter by early June and a finished charter by early August.  Thus, the entire process took less than six months.  (Note, there was not a study phase to this effort.)

Charlotte-Mecklenburg II (1994-1996)

Structure

The 1994-96 Charlotte-Mecklenburg effort involved two entities, which operated consecutively – the Charter Drafting Committee, and the Charter Commission.

The Charter Drafting Committee was created during the summer of 1994 by concurrent resolutions adopted by the city council and board of commissioners.  It had 12 members, appointed as follows:  4 members by the city council, 4 members by the board of commissioners, and 2 co-chairs and 2 other members appointed jointly by the mayor and chair of the board of commissioners.  This Committee was charged with drafting a preliminary charter that merged the county and city governments, but under a set of principles approved by the two existing governing boards.  The two existing boards subsequently charged the Committee with also recommending whether to go forward with consolidation.

Once the Drafting Committee completed its work, the two existing boards adopted a second set of concurrent resolutions, establishing the Charter Commission.  It had 25 members, appointed as follows:  10 members appointed by the city council, 10 members appointed by the board of commissioners, and a chair, vice-chair, and 3 additional members appointed jointly by the mayor and chair of the board of commissioners.  (In the event, four of the Drafting Committee members, including both co-chairs, were appointed to the Charter Commission.)  The Charter Commission’s charge was to publicize and hold public hearings on the preliminary charter, make revisions to the preliminary charter based on the public hearings and present the revised charter to the two existing governing boards, and – if the two governing boards approved the revised charter – call a referendum on consolidation.  The Commission accomplished the first two tasks, holding six public hearings and making a few revisions to the preliminary charter, but never had a chance to get to the third, inasmuch as the two boards did not agree to go forward.  The Charter Commission’s charter is entitled the Amended Preliminary Charter and is dated June 19, 1996.

Throughout this work, the two entities relied principally upon the county attorney and deputy city attorney and a group of high-level administrators for staff work, with some assistance from the Institute of Government of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Timeline

The city council and board of commissioners adopted the concurrent resolutions establishing the Charter Drafting Committee in August and September 1994, respectively, and the various appointments to the Committee were made in the succeeding two months.  The Committee organized in October 1994 and set to work.

The Committee held 13 meetings between October 1994 and April 1995, and it submitted its preliminary charter to the county and city in early May.  The two existing governing boards asked the Committee to revisit the issue of saving money through consolidation, and the Committee responded in August with a proposal that the Metro Council be mandated to reduce overall budgeted expenditures by $ 4 million a year for each of the first five years of the new government’s existence.

The various appointing authorities appointed the members of the Charter Commission during the next three months, and the Commission began its work in November 1995.  Over the next several months it held six public hearings and then debated revisions in the preliminary charter.  It presented its report to the two existing governing boards in June 1996.

In July the board of commissioners approved the charter, but with modifications to the proposed structure of the consolidated governing board.  In August the city council attempted to reach agreement on the charter but ultimately was unable to do so, and voted 7-4 to terminate the consolidation effort.  Thus the effort ended about 22 months after the Charter Drafting Committee began its work.

Durham II (1999-2000)

Structure

The 1999-2000 effort in Durham involved two separate stages, with two separate entities.

In February 1999 the board of county commissioners and city council created a Joint City Council/County Commissioners Merger Steering Committee (with all five commissioners and six council members), and directed the Committee to create citizen task forces to review merger issues and assess the feasibility and advisability of consolidating the city and county.  The task forces were formed in the summer of 1999, and the governments engaged a consulting firm, DMG-Maximus, to work with them.  There were six separate task forces, with the following areas of responsibility:

• Administrative/General Government
• Human and Community Services
• Governmental Structure
• Public Protection
• Public Works
• Taxation and Finance

These task forces worked intensively over the last six months of 1999 and issued a report in early 2000.  In general the various task forces determined that consolidation was feasible, and several determined that it was desirable as well.  On the basis of the task force reports, the council and board of commissioners agreed to create a charter commission.  (In the meantime the city and county expanded the role of the task forces’ consulting firm and engaged it to prepare, by the end of March, a cost-benefit analysis of consolidation.)

At the end of February 2000 the two governing boards adopted concurrent resolutions creating the Durham City-County Consolidation Charter Commission, directing it to prepare a charter and any necessary companion legislation for merging the city and county and to do so by July 15, 2000.  (This date was later extended to August 15, 2000.)  The Charter commission was to have 40 members, jointly appointed by the city council and board of county commissioners, plus two co-chairs, jointly appointed by the mayor and chair of the commissioners.  A significant number of Charter Commission members had also been members of the task forces.  Concurrently the county and city contracted with the Institute of Government of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to provide legal and organizational staffing to the Charter Commission.

The governing boards acted quickly in appointing the members of the Charter Commission, which held its first meeting on March 22, 2000.  It quickly divided into four committees, which did most of the detailed work necessary to preparation of a charter.  The four committees were:

• Governmental Structure
• Governing Board Structure
• Governing Board Procedures and Law Enforcement
• Continuation and Transition

The committees began fairly quickly to meet weekly, while the Charter Commission met every week or two weeks and held several public hearings as well.

The full Commission began making decisions on the charter in late May, 2000, and continued to do so into July.  Its draft charter was issued on July 28, 2000.  After reviewing the draft, the two governing boards determined not to go forward with the consolidation effort.

Timeline

The study phase began in the summer of 1999 and continued into 2000.  The city council and board of commissioners adopted the concurrent resolutions establishing the Charter Commission in February 2000, and the Commission held its first meeting on March 22.  The Commission published its draft charter on July 28, just four months later.  The Commission’s committees met almost every week during April, May, and June, and the Charter Commission itself met two or three times a month.  The entire process took about 13 months.