A municipal advisory council in the United States is an organization composed of elected or appointed members whose purpose is to advise a city or county government about the activities and problems of the area represented.
In California state government, for example, the councils serve unincorporated communities as links to county boards of supervisors under authorization of a 1971 legislative statute, amended in 1978.
A number of these Municipal Advisory Councils, such as East Palo Alto and Isla Vista, have initiated incorporation proposals to create new cities out of formerly unincorporated areas.
[4]In 1977, the California State Office of Planning and Research conducted an extensive study[5] on Municipal Advisory Councils up to that point evaluating their effectiveness and usefulness.
Beth Meyerson-Martinez studied MACs again in her Fall 1985 thesis "Municipal Advisory Councils: An Alternative for the Unincorporated Community" focusing specifically on Stanislaus County.