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Town Council
The Southern Pines Town Council needs a citizen to fill a vacant council seat that expires with the November 2025 election. This person will be appointed by the Council in early 2024 and is expected to attend all meetings and vote on important Town business.
If you are interested, visit our Application page for more detail.
Meetings
Work Session
- 3:00 p.m.
- Fourth Tuesday of each month
- C. Michael Haney Community Room
Southern Pines Police Department
450 W. Pennsylvania Ave.
Southern Pines, NC 28387 - No regularly scheduled work session in December
Agenda Meetings
- 6:00 p.m.
- First Tuesday of each month
- C. Michael Haney Community Room
Southern Pines Police Department
450 W. Pennsylvania Ave.
Southern Pines, NC 28387
Business Meetings
- 6:00 p.m.
- Second Tuesday of each month
- Douglass Community Center
1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave.
Southern Pines, NC 28387
Town Council Meeting Calendar
Meetings/work sessions of the Southern Pines Town Council are available on the Town’s YouTube channel. The Town Council meetings are live streamed on the channel for viewing while the meetings take place or after they have concluded. Please note, the video is provided only for the purposes of viewing the meetings; public comments or questions are not accepted via the live stream. To receive notifications when new content is published, please “subscribe” to the Town’s channel at https://bit.ly/3hXx2Qk
If you have any questions about meetings, please call 910-692-7021.
Open to Public
The public is invited and urged to attend all council meetings to insure open communications between them and their elected representatives. To better understand council proceedings, citizens may want to familiarize themselves with the types of actions taken by council.
The agenda is usually arranged so that public hearings on matters of general interest are held early in the meeting and citizens' views, comments, and/or inquiries can be heard.
Agendas & Minutes
Agendas and packets with background materials are published to the website, generally by 5pm on the Friday preceding a meeting.
Agendas for Town Council & Appointed Boards
Minutes are typically approved by the Town Council in the month following the meeting. After approval, they are uploaded to the website. To access recent minutes, visit the Agenda Center and navigate to the meeting date. Click the arrow in the download menu and select minutes.
Minutes that are not available in the Agenda Center can be accessed here.
Responsibilities of the Town Council
The Town Council is most similar to the legislative branch of the federal and state government. The five elected Councilmembers adopt and amend town ordinances, adopt the budget, appoint citizens to various boards and commissions, and hire the town manager and town attorney. Southern Pines is a council-manager form of government, with the Town Council providing policy direction to the Town Manager, who then directs the day-to-day operations and implements Council policies.
Learn more about the Council-Manager form of government.
Ordinances
The Town Council acts in a number of ways to provide the policies by which the town is operated. Adopting ordinances is the most formal and binding type of council legislation and is the equivalent of adopting Town laws that govern activities within the Town of Southern Pines. An affirmative vote by at least three Councilmembers is necessary for any ordinance to pass.
Public Hearings
The Town Council holds public hearings prior to taking action on various business items in order to provide citizens an opportunity to share feedback with the Council.
General public hearings, sometimes called legislative hearings, are held when the Town Council is acting in a legislative capacity to adopt, amend, or repeal ordinances. The purpose of these hearings is for Councilmembers to solicit and consider concerns from the community at large. As an example, the Council holds a public hearing prior to adopting the annual budget.
The Town Council also conducts more formal hearings, similar to a courtroom proceeding, in a “quasi-judicial” capacity, usually in matters involving land use. In accordance with state statutes, the Council must follow pre-determined standards for admitting evidence that can be used to render a decision. These “evidentiary hearings” are held when considering applications for special use permits and preliminary development plans that are part of planned development projects.
Learn more about the two types of hearings in Legislative Hearings vs. Evidentiary Hearings: A Citizen’s Guide.
Resolutions
Resolutions are written, official actions adopted by the Council, but are less formal than ordinances and may not carry the full weight of Town "laws." Resolutions are used in a variety of ways: to commemorate special actions, occasions, or dates; to express the intent of future actions of the council; to make requests of other agencies; to recognize individuals, organizations, or significant occasions. Like ordinances, resolutions also need an affirmative vote by three Councilmembers to pass.