Matt Leighninger, Vice President of the National Civic League, was one of eight attendees we filmed at the American Society for Public Administration’s annual conference in Hollywood, California between March 20 and March 24th.  This is the last in the series that have appeared on Thursdays in this space. (You can see all eight at the bottom of this page)

Leighninger focuses his comments on the work that the League is doing at a time when, in his words, “Democracy again is in trouble. Trust is low; polarization is high.”

“There are all kinds of ideas that we can use,” he said, “We’ve just to plug them into our systems in various ways so that they can improve the way that people interact with their institutions, the way that people interact with each other, So, that’s what the League does in many ways.”

One of the initiatives that Leighninger describes is its long standing program called the All American City Awards, “which we’ve been giving out since 1949, which is a terrific kind of rewards program that acknowledges and rewards and recognizes all the local innovations people are doing in their cities, towns, and counties to make democracy better in their communities.”

He goes on to describe an effort to help create better public meetings, from the “tired format that most of them use now, which is giving people three minutes at a microphone to make comments to the elected body.” The Civic League’s goal on this front is to change “those sorts of meetings to be much more deliberative, participatory (and) civil. “

A third area of interest for the League is to “work with cities on city charter revision, The city charter is essentially the constitution for your city and it’s a tremendous lever for change. . .”

He goes on to describe other efforts in which the League is involved, and invites people to “let us know what you’re doing in your community that’s interesting and innovative., what kinds of things that you might need that could be helpful to you, and how  you can connect with other communities like your own.”