Raleigh City Council to vote Tuesday on bringing back Citizen Advisory Council

The Raleigh City Council will vote on whether to restore its Citizen Advisory Council (CAC) on Tuesday.

A CAC is a group of individuals who have been appointed as an intermediate group between citizens and elected city officials.

Four years ago, the city council voted to terminate all CACs in Raleigh.

The council said it wanted to "revolutionize our civic engagement process to ensure an inclusionary, participatory, democracy."

However, the Raleigh Citizen Advisory Council (RCAC) said in a press release that the city has failed to follow through with this promise.

"No new organization or city initiative has replaced what the grass-roots CAC network does for Raleigh residents," the RCAC said in the press release. "Four years ago there were 18 functioning CACs, today about half of them are still functioning."

The RCAC said many of the groups that have disappeared were part of minority-majority neighborhoods that suffer from gentrification pressure.

After working with Raleigh city councilors, the RCAC said it believes it has enough support for the vote to pass.

The Raleigh City Council created the RCAC 50 years ago in 1974 with the help of Raleigh’s first African-American mayor, Clarence Lightner. The RCAC said its purpose is to give a voice to all Raleigh residents.

"Hopefully very soon every Raleigh resident will once again have an equal opportunity for community engagement no matter where they live in Raleigh," the group said.

The meeting will start at 1 p.m.