Got an opinion? Great!

County officials want you to share it with the community Thursday night at University Park Baptist Church, near Hornet's Nest Park. The meeting starts at 7 p.m. Here's a map.

Among the questions to be considered, she says: “Do we need a coordinated plan for the delivery of human services? What is currently under way? How do we connect the dots? Who do we look to for leadership?”

Scheduled panelists are Taylor Batten, the Observer's editorial page editor; Brett Loftis, executive director of the Council for Children's Rights; Dana McDonald of University Park Baptist Church; Pat Mumford, director of Neighborhood and & Business Services for the city of Charlotte; and Mary Wilson, director of the Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services.

To sign up for the meeting or for more details, contact Renee Thompson at 704-336-2424 or RThompson@ci.charlotte .nc.us.

Read more at Charlotte.com.

From ProPublica.org:

To curb the lobbying feeding frenzy surrounding the nearly $800 billion stimulus package [1], in March the Obama administration imposed unprecedented restrictions [2] on lobbyists: All lobbyist communications regarding specific projects were to be submitted in writing, and general conversations between government officials and lobbyists about stimulus policies had to be noted in disclosures posted online.

We decided to track this promise with a clock [3]—so far it’s at 94 days and counting—and there is no sign it will be stopping any time soon.

As we noted in May, though more than 800 lobbyists had registered [4] to lobby on stimulus issues, only a handful actually appeared in lobbying disclosures [5] on agency Web sites. Instead, lobbying firms were sending junior employees who were not registered lobbyists, or arranging direct meetings between government officials and clients.

After pressure from lobbyists and First Amendment groups, the Obama Administration later revised the rules [6] so that all oral communications had to be disclosed, not just those with registered lobbyists.  Under the revised rules, the disclosures are only required for lobbying around just $88 billion worth of stimulus funding to be distributed through competitive grants.

Outside of the competitive grants, the old rules still apply: Government employees only have to disclose oral communications with registered lobbyists.

But as the Associated Press recently reported, the rule change hasn’t resulted in any spike of disclosures [7]: In August there were a grand total of eight contacts disclosed.

White House Office of Management and Budget Spokesman Tom Gavin told the AP the dearth of disclosures was due to the fact that agencies were still adjusting to the new process.

In a huge step for mankind ...

Carbon dioxide will soon be declared a dangerous pollutant - a move that could help propel slow-moving climate-change legislation on Capitol Hill, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Monday.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told reporters that a formal "endangerment finding," which would trigger federal regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, probably would "happen in the next months."

Jackson announced her timeline even as top senators said they were delaying plans to introduce legislation that would set new limits on carbon dioxide emissions. Senators had been scheduled to unveil legislation next Tuesday, but the date has now been pushed back to later in September.

The EPA can formalize the finding anytime, now that it has closed a 60-day public comment period that netted more than 300,000 responses.

A formal endangerment finding would obligate the agency to regulate greenhouse gas pollution under the Clean Air Act - even if Congress doesn't pass a final climate-change bill.

President Obama and Jackson have said they would prefer that Congress - rather than the EPA - take the lead in implementing new greenhouse gas limits. Businesses and energy industry leaders also have largely favored congressional action over EPA-imposed limits, because they believe lawmakers are better positioned to combine economic safeguards with any new carbon cap.

"Legislation is so important, because it will combine the most efficient, most economy-wide, least costly (and) least disruptive way to deal with carbon dioxide pollution," Jackson said. "We get further faster without top-down regulation."

But Jackson insisted the EPA would continue on a path that began when the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that greenhouse gases qualified as pollutants and could be regulated if the government determined they threatened the public.

"Two years is a long time for this country to wait for us to respond to the Supreme Court's ruling," Jackson said.

Read the entire The SanFrancisco Chronicle article here.

Purdue University on where Co2 is coming from:

"... study reported administrative costs had grown faster than academic expenses."

You don't say.

Don't suppose the layoffs have anything to do with this: As economy suffers, bureaucratic ranks growing at UNC. Or, this: Audit: Mary Easley's N.C. State salary 'excessive'.

Makes you wonder, if the economy hadn't tanked, would the 16-school university system have continued to bloat their upper ranks?

Some minor details to keep in mind: The 900 administrators getting the ax aren't all from one school and some of the positions that will be cut may not be filled at present.

UNC System schools will eliminate about 900 administrative positions as the system works to trim its budget.

The cuts were announced Monday following a meeting between system President Erskine Bowles and university chancellors.

The decision comes after a Bain and Co. study reported administrative costs had grown faster than academic expenses.

More from The Charlotte Business Journal.