The League does do those things because it has no special axes to grind except trying to help governments be more effective, efficient and responsive. We never outgrow the need to have a place where good spirited people who want to do the right thing can gather and offer their experience in order to make public life better. That is the essence of the Municipal League. The mission is simple but, of course, the doing is more difficult. That s where you come in.
Civic life needs to be engaged by people in ways other than simply paying taxes and voting.
Rational discourse and analysis of issues is needed now more than ever. The public debate today is more often a rant that degenerates into two sides, each trying to put down and repudiate the other without any interest in trying to devise a workable solution to the problem. I am amazed at the letters to the editor columns in local papers. No wonder it s so difficult to get our best and brightest to run for public office. If ever there was a time for rational reasonable people with experience and good will to gather, it is now and if ever there was an organization that could foster it, it is the Municipal League.