Pursuant to North Carolina General Statutes, NCGS § 153A-40, the Orange County Board of Commissioners provides notice of the following changes in the 2022 meeting calendar.
Due to current public health concerns, the Board of Commissioners will conduct virtual board meetings through Feb. 22, 2022.  Members of the Board of Commissioners will be participating in the meetings remotely.

As in prior meetings, members of the public will be able to view and listen to the meetings via real-time video streaming on the county’s website and on Spectrum Cable TV. The meetings will also be video-recorded for future television broadcast and reference on the county’s website.

The following is the updated meeting schedule through February 22, 2022:

• Feb. 1 - BOCC Virtual Business Meeting – 7 p.m.
• Feb. 8 - BOCC Virtual Work Session – 7 p.m.
• Feb. 17 - BOCC Virtual Business Meeting – 7 p.m.
• Feb. 22 - Virtual Joint Meeting with School Boards – 7 p.m.

Orange County Board of Commissioners’ meetings and work sessions are available via live streaming video at http://www.orangecountync.gov/967/Meeting-Videos and Orange County Gov-TV on channels 1301 or 97.6 (Spectrum Cable).

On Jan. 24, 2022, Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour and Chief District Court Judge Samantha Cabe issued a new comprehensive Bail Policy for Orange County. This new Policy is the culmination of an inclusive process started in 2019 by Judge Baddour with the formation of a Pretrial Reform Work Group tasked with reviewing existing pretrial policies and determining what additional steps the county could take to further pretrial justice.
  
This group of senior court and law enforcement stakeholders and community members engaged Professor Jessica Smith from UNC School of Government’s Criminal Justice Innovation Lab to facilitate the effort. Over the last two years, the Pretrial Work Group and senior court stakeholders met regularly with Professor Smith and her team to identify priority reforms, review policies and recommend new practices with the goal of promoting a fair and effective pretrial justice system in Orange County.
  
“While Orange County has long been a leader in evidence-based pretrial practices that include a county-funded Pretrial Services program, daily first appearances for misdemeanor and felony cases and counsel for all detained individuals, our stakeholders, with support from the community, knew we needed to do more to ensure fairness, consistency and equity in our pretrial practices,” said Caitlin Fenhagen, Criminal Justice Resource Director for Orange County.
  
The Pretrial Work Group’s focus was eliminating the negative consequences that arise from the unnecessary pretrial detention of individuals who do not present any significant risk to the community but who are unable to afford money bonds set in their cases. State law requires imposing a written promise to appear unless specific conditions exist. This mandate has long been incorporated into Judicial District 15B’s Pretrial Policies, but local data indicated that conditions for release were not being consistently set in accordance with this statutory requirement.