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Members urge faster reappointments, clearer onboarding for Raleigh’s Community Engagement Board
Summary
Current and former members of the Community Engagement Board told a special council committee the board has persistent vacancies and inconsistent onboarding; they asked for resumed appointments, an expanded youth seat range, and better document access.
Members and former members of Raleigh’s Community Engagement Board told a City Council special committee they are short-staffed, under-resourced and need clearer onboarding and document access to do their work.
Tyesha Mosley of the Community Engagement Department told the committee the board was created in 2022, has 16 seats and currently includes two inaugural members seeking reappointment. Mosley said four members are not seeking reappointment to focus on other priorities and four resignations were due to life transitions such as a youth seat holder graduating and relocating. She said staff is enhancing applications to list estimated hours per month and is standardizing onboarding materials for staff liaisons.
Members at the meeting pressed for faster action and clearer expectations. Veronica Clark, a current Community Engagement Board member, urged council to “resume appointments and term renewals immediately” and recommended expanding the youth member age range from 18–23 to 18–29 because “that’s just too much transition happening in their life at that time.”
Dr. Ulysses Lane, a member of the Community Engagement Board and chair of the Southeast Citizen Advisory Council, said the board’s onboarding should include three components: orientation by the appointing council member, orientation by staff and orientation by committee officers so volunteers understand expectations. Former board member Carmen Coffin asked council to preserve historical context for older boards so volunteers and council members understand why boards were created and what needs they were intended to address.
Speakers also asked staff to make documents and minutes easier to find in a centralized location. Jamie Robinson, chair of the Human Relations Commission, and Ian Burnett of the Parks, Recreation and Greenway Advisory Board described missing or hard-to-find minutes; speakers recommended a shared SharePoint or boarddocs repository and asked that boards adopt minutes in their regular open meetings so records are timely.
The special committee did not adopt any immediate structural changes to the Community Engagement Board at the meeting but asked staff to follow up on appointments, onboarding materials and document access plans.
