WELCOME

Every new publication has to justify itself: Why one more things to read?

We answer this way, for this new website . . .

HELLO

In a world where change is everywhere and moving so rapidly, our public institutions are challenged. They too need to change; to adapt. But change for them is especially hard . . . needing, as it does, to come through the policy process in our political system.

Too often, today, the public and political discussion about change consists of deploring problems and reaffirming goals. It is as if ‘meaning well’ and being committed by itself makes something happen.

A goal is not a recommendation; however passionately proclaimed. For it to be implemented the public and the policy process has to be shown what to do. There has to be a ‘How’.

Minnesota used to have a comparative advantage in institutional adaptation . . . was good at thinking out the ‘How’. In recent years fewer of the organizations in public affairs think in those terms.

Our aim — understanding that the discussion today emphasizes also the ‘why’ and ‘who’ of change’, and approving of that — is to restore Minnesota’s capacity to think through the ‘how’. We hope you will find this website useful, and that it will be effective. We are convinced the effort is necessary.

ABOUT

Its sponsor is The Civic Affairs Trust.

Those responsible for the work of this private foundation are Ted Kolderie and William Blazar.

The two first met when working for the Citizens League.

Both have been involved with the Humphrey School of Public Affairs; Bill as a student before joining the League; Ted as a senior fellow after leaving as executive director of the League.

Bill spent most of his later career in public affairs for the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce; Ted working independently.

POLICY AREAS

The growth of the Twin Cities area after World War II made it clear there was now a metropolitan as well as a municipal 'city'. By the mid-1960s urgent questions about regional transportation, waste disposal, open space and public finance were creating a need for new ways to make decisions and to organize programs at the metropolitan level. In this video two persons then with the Citizens League recall the discussion that created the consensus that made possible the establishment of the Metropolitan Council in 1967.

Video interview of Ted Kolderie and Paul Gilje

A measure enacted by the Minnesota Legislature in l971 provided for a limited sharing, among all taxing jurisdictions, of a part of the growth of valuations in the commercial/industrial property tax base; this to reduce the fiscal disparities among different parts of the Twin Cities region. On the 50th anniversary of this legislation Paul Gilje, who had staffed the committee of the Citizens League that developed this proposal, wrote the definitive account of the politics of its passage and of its subsequent successful administration.

by Paul Gilje

Purchase the book

How to make innovation possible in public education

Chartering

Read here

Read here

THINKING: Times Present

This small booklet draws the obvious conclusion from its review of the innovations in schooling that have developed in Minnesota . . . and challenges those in conventional districts and schools now to adopt this 'new technology of learning'.