CARY, NC – What started out as one mayor’s special committee is growing to a multi municipal task force on school assignment.

At a work session last night, Garner voted to sign an agreement to join Cary in setting up a citizen’s group to study and make recommendations on Wake County Public School System’s school assignment policies and activities. The new Mayors’ Task Force on School Assignment will have 20 members—10 appointed from Cary by Mayor Glen Lang and 10 appointed from Garner by Mayor Sam Bridges. The goal of the group is to articulate, prioritize, and work with the Wake County Public School Board to positively and effectively resolve the most critical school assignment issues.

Lang, who is expected to announce his appointments to the task force on October 10^th, said he is very happy to have Garner join in the effort. "This has never been just a Cary issue, and the outcome of the task force will certainly be strengthened by the input of our Garner neighbors," said Lang.

Garner Mayor Sam Bridges said, "We have been discussing the school assignment issues in Garner for some time, and we are very pleased to join with Mayor Lang and others in Cary to work towards making recommendations to the Wake County School Board." Garner’s appointments will be made on October 7.

Lang and Bridges agreed that if other Wake County mayors expressed an interest in participating in the task force, Cary and Garner would lower the number of their appointments to the group so that each jurisdiction would have a proportionate share of the 20 slots.

"We welcome the participation of other mayors and their communities," said Lang. "We’d like to keep the number of task force participants to about 20 so that the group can be effective, and we’re willing to alter the composition of the group to make sure that each community is represented equally should others decide to join in."

Lang and Bridges will co-chair the task force, which will meet the first Thursday of each month from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Meeting locations will alternate between Cary and Garner. The first meeting of the group will be held in Cary on November 7^th at the Cary Senior Center. All meetings will be open to the public.

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