Community IDEA-Net
		           Demonstration Summary 

A demonstration project of the UNC Leadership Information Archives, the
Community IDEA-Net (CINet) disseminates ideas about making governments
more effective.  It also attempts to develop systematic data on what works
and why.  CINet works like this:  Say, the city manager of Wilmington, NC
faces a problem; the city council wants the manager's office to formulate
a plan for providing city services despite the fact that the city's
revenue base has been steadily declining.  This problem seems to present
the manager and the council with a "no win" situation:  either the council
says "no" to the aspirations of its residents or it raises taxes on an
already burdened revenue base, thus further undermining the city's revenue
potential. 

In an hour's session, the manager can log onto the INTERNET and get 
access to the Community IDEA-Net.  Here the city manager can utilize 
sophisticated services to search through the IDEA-Net's electronic 
"reference room" for project descriptions which have worked in other 
cities (either in North Carolina or nationwide).  These program 
descriptions describe a city's initial conditions and its goals.  
They describe in reasonable detail the kinds of programs that worked 
under these circumstances to further the city's tax base, improve 
services, and otherwise break the no win downward spiral.  The 
descriptions provide the manager with ideas, basic descriptions and 
evaluations with sufficient detail to make a preliminary 
presentation to the council.  Then the descriptions provide "contact 
information" to facilitate more detailed information from the 
original source.  

For more information about CINet, contact Terry Sullivan at 
sullivan@SUNSite.UNC.EDU.

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