Mayor Meeker and the City Council are considering changing Raleigh’s C.A.C. (Community Action Council) structure. And, of course, the first thing someone suggested was hiring a consultant to do a study. For $150,000.

The C.A.C.’s are gadfly-like neighborhood groups funded by the city to advise the City Council. Right now, they claim 6400 members. But they want the city to launch a marketing campaign to get more, plus they want to increase their budget by $25,000, on top of the $15,000 cash and “$1 million in staff time and service” they got from city government last year. (Which means last year the Mayor and City Council spent roughly $1,015,000 to recruit volunteers.)

Here’s a suggestion for the Mayor. Can the consultant, forget the marketing campaign, and put the million dollars worth of staff time to work solving traffic jams. That would make a lot more people happy.

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