Written by Public Information Manager Bill Carroll

Have you ever been to a public meeting? If your answer is “no,” you are missing your opportunity to literally see your elected public officials hard at work on your behalf.  

So what’s stopping you from attending a Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners meeting? 

A lot, possibly. We know that. And we can help.

Board 101

The nine members of the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) are elected every other November to make big decisions for our community. They adopt the annual County budget and set the County property tax rate. They also assess and establish priorities on the many community needs, especially those related to health, education, welfare, mental health and the environment. 

Regular meetings of the Board are generally held the first and third Tuesday nights of each month in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center in downtown Charlotte. The Board meets to discuss budget and public policy on alternating Tuesday afternoons. There’s plenty of parking.  

All About ADA

Accessible public communication and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance is important to us. The County will provide auxiliary aids and services so individuals with a disability have an equal opportunity to participate in, and enjoy the benefits of, any County program, service, or activity. The County Clerk’s Office is happy to assist you if you need any kind of accommodation for meetings.  

For those who would rather watch at home, every public BOCC meeting (there are more than 50 each year) is televised live on local Spectrum Cable channel 16. Mecklenburg County and the City of Charlotte share the channel known as “The Government Channel.” All meetings are closed-captioned.  

A screenshot from a BOCC meeting that shows the Board sitting at the dais and a picture-in-picture in the top right corner of a sign language interpreter.

Every meeting is online and recorded at Watch.MeckNC.gov. You can easily find every BOCC meeting going as far back as 2007! Feel free to shuttle back and forth in each meeting just as easily as on your home DVR, on virtually any device, including smartphones. The County offers every meeting in spoken Spanish live. We also added American Sign Language interpretation for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. You can select closed captioning in more than 60 languages on meeting replays. What you may not know is that every regular BOCC meeting is also streamed live on Twitter.

But Wait! There’s More!

But Watch.MeckNC.gov isn’t just for meetings. During the Covid crisis, Mecklenburg County also began broadcasting regular health updates for the news media and the public there, too. You can also watch them live at the same time on our official Mecklenburg County Facebook and Twitter accounts.