The preceding history is not merely a chronicle of the achievements of the Municipal League. This history is really the story of the contributions of scores of community organizations-the League of Women Voters, chambers of commerce community councils, environmental groups, churches, social action organizations, political parties, and more-and tens of thousands of volunteers from every class and walk of life who have given their time and money to make Seattle and King County a better community.

For the future of the Municipal League as an organization, probably the most important (and most positive) change since 1910 has been the rise of citizen participation in all levels of government. Where the Municipal League once shared the public podium with a handful of citizen groups, now hundreds compete for the attention of government and the electorate. Thus the Municipal League faces a most welcome challenge-the challenge of its own success in encouraging and sustaining creative and effective citizen participation in government.

The Municipal League recognizes that any mature organization. whatever its accomplishments. is either building upon its successes (and learning from its disappointments) or it is living off them, slowly depleting its reserves of reputation and draining its members energies. Equally, the Municipal League knows that it can-and should-only continue to exist by virtue of its new contributions to the public's well-being, not by dint of past glories. For these reasons, the Board of Trustees of the Municipal League has undertaken four major initiatives to reform the organization's procedures, to reinvigorate its membership, and to assure the continuing relevance and quality of its contributions to the community:

    The Municipal League is reaffirming its commitment to strengthening the opportunities and processes for citizen participation, both within itself by improving its committee structures, and within the larger community by sponsoring evening seminars on public issues to promote both member and public education;

    The Municipal League is modifying its procedures for the evaluation of candidates to assure objective and nonpartisan analysis of candidate abilities by initiating outside experts to participate in reviewing incumbents' past performance, and by expanding the checking of candidate references and backgrounds to balance subjective impressions created during candidate interviews;

    The Municipal League is embarking on an annual “Public Agenda" process to aid both itself and the community. In understanding and forecasting emerging public issues. This undertaking will entail publishing a quarterly newsletter to track important issues and actors in the community; and

    The Municipal League is developing new relationships with area graduate schools, broadening its financial base, and introducing modern management tools (such as full computerization achieved this year) to improve and streamline its own internal operations-something it's always been quick to chide government about doing but which it has been slow to undertake itself.

Through these initiatives and reforms, the Municipal League seeks to maintain the opportunity for citizens-who have no other "special interest" than to promote good government and a healthy community-to make their voices heard in the councils of government, and to continue to provide, as the Municipal League has for the past 75 years, a forum and a civic workshop for "the center" to make its own special contribution to Seattle and King County.