Public Meetings Calendar

We don’t know. We set up the electronic calendar to include all of the agencies that filed meeting notices with us in calendar year 2014/2015. There may be other agencies that didn’t file notices during that time for some reason. For example, an agency may not have had a public meeting and so may not have filed a meeting notice. In addition, new agencies are often created by the General Assembly or by agencies themselves. For example, a principal department head might decide to create an advisory committee which would then need to file notices.

Question 10. I looked up a meeting in your e-calendar. It doesn’t include information I’m looking for. Why not?

Agencies are only required to enter the information required by the Open Meetings Act. Our e-calendar has space for agencies to enter optional information but we can’t make them do that. There should be contact information for every meeting so you can call or email and ask questions about the meeting. DO NOT call or email the Secretary of State’s office to ask questions about a meeting. We will not know the answers. The only information we have about meetings is what you see on our website.

Question 11. Why do I have to look in two places on your website to be sure I find the information about a meeting?

There are two places on the website with meeting notice information: the E-Calendar and the legacy meeting notice site. Some agencies filed meeting notices for this year before the E-Calendar was on our website. We don’t have the staff to be able to go back and add the information about those meetings to our E-Calendar.

Question 12. Where can I get more information about what the law requires with regard to public meetings?

You can get more information about the Open Meetings Law from many different sources. For example, you can get information from the Attorney General's website.

There are websites outside of State government which are also possible sources for information about the Open Meetings Law. Please note that the websites listed below are not part of the Secretary of State’s office. We offer this information in an effort to be helpful.

Public Records Law for North Carolina Local Governments by David Lawrence, is a book published by the School of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Although the book mainly deals with Public Records Law and local government, it includes some information about State government and open meetings. Visit the School of Government website.

The School of Government also has a blog, Coates Canons, which includes postings about the Open Meetings Law.