Unless otherwise specifically provided, or unless otherwise clearly required by the context, the words and phrases defined in this section have the meaning indicated when used in this Chapter.
(1) "City" means a city as defined by G.S. 160A-1(2), except that it does not include a city that, without regard to its date of incorporation, would be disqualified from receiving gasoline tax allocations by G.S. 136-41.2(a).
(2) "Clerk" means the clerk to the board of commissioners.
(3) "County" means any one of the counties listed in G.S. 153A-10.
(4) "General law" means an act of the General Assembly that applies to all units of local government, to all counties, to all counties within a class defined by population or other criteria, to all cities, or to all cities within a class defined by population or other criteria, including a law that meets the foregoing standards but contains a clause or section exempting from its effect one or more counties, cities, or counties and cities.
(5) "Local act" means an act of the General Assembly that applies to one or more specific counties, cities, or counties and cities by name. "Local act" is interchangeable with the terms "special act," "special law," "public-local act," and "private act," is used throughout this Chapter in preference to those terms, and means a local act as defined in this subdivision without regard to the terminology employed in local acts or other portions of the General Statutes.
(6) "Publish," "publication," and other forms of the verb "to publish" mean insertion in a newspaper qualified under G.S. 1-597 to publish legal advertisements in the county.