MISSOURI WATCH: DETOURS THROUGH THE LAND OF OZ

The vast majority of Missourians who want the very best for their state and who make a serious effort to view events with an open, non-partisan mind have been troubled in recent days by several occurrences. At least three are outlined here to illustrate the point.

1. More than six months after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision that marks the beginning- of the end of imposed desegregation remedies, a federal judge asks a civic leader to consider the consequences to the public schools of St. Louis.

2. Almost at the same moment that the University of Missouri was receiving record-breaking appropriations to stimulate major academic enhancement programs, the system was thrown into something approaching a crisis over leadership.

3. A badly needed program to improve elementary and secondary education in the state is threatened by some persons, among them the very sincere as well as the politically motivated, who agree with the goal but question the methodology.

Listing of these three problems does not imply that they are the only serious dilemmas facing citizens of the state, although they do serve to illustrate serious consequences which can result when planning never extends beyond the next election.

The three cited problems graphically illustrate what can, and often does, occur when state officials are unprepared for unseen consequences of even well-intentioned programs.

Indeed, the examples above occurred precisely because programs were originated to resolve deficiencies in governmental services.

The basic problem is that all of these programs were devised to meet emergencies, almost all of them unseen, unnoticed and for which the state and its citizens were totally unprepared to face, much less resolve.

Adequate planning would have provided the state with a better program of integrating schools, which had long been segregated, than solutions offered by federal judges, most of whom had only rudimentary knowledge of how public education works in the state.

Adequate planning would have forestalled a dispute that occurred between the University of Missouri's Board of Curators and the chancellor of the system's largest, most prestigious campus.

Preliminary planning would have involved, and then resolved, the direction taken to implement badly needed academic progress in some 525 school districts throughout Missouri.

It serves no purpose to question the motives of any of the parties in all three of the examples, for most public officials, most public employees and most persons involved in either the planing or implementation of programs are not only sincere but motivated to serve their constituencies.

It is worth noting at this point that the three problems cited are not the only dilemmas facing us. Missouri will soon have to resolve a great number of problems that have been sublimated for a number of reasons, including political and financial. Among these unresolved, unnoticed problems are:

* What can Missouri do to improve public health services to low-income families who have neither insurance nor adequate resources to provide for themselves?

* Does the state's present course of relying on profit-motivated private facilities best meet the needs of more than 100,000 mentally ill and retarded citizens?

* Will Missouri be able to meet the health needs of at least 600,000 citizens who are currently without insurance, and what should the state do in the event it must eventually allocate more than 29 percent of its current general revenue to social services?

* Does state government have a stake in rebuilding its rapidly decaying downtown urban areas and can remedies be devised that would provide adequate returns of taxpayer money?

* Missouri, with the second longest state constitution in the nation, has not revised its charter in more than 50 years and portions of it have either become superfluous or, worse, counterproductive. A decision must be made within six years.

* Should public building needs be driven by private gifts that serve to alter existing state plans and priorities?

* Does the state's non-partisan court plan remain half implemented and half ignored, or are there reasons to revise the existing rules? Would citizens be better served if the plan was extended to all courts or only modified to overcome the unattended pitfalls in the existing system?

* Is the present tax system fair, and what levies can be changed or reduced to serve all citizens' best interests?

There is no end to problems that will someday confront the more than 5 million persons who call themselves Missourians. Some may, at this moment, be considered of such little import that no time should be wasted in addressing them. This was the attitude adopted in official quarters when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Brown v. Topeka. That prevailing view has since cost the citizens of this state nearly $3 billion in added taxes. How's that for costly public indifference and official neglect of anything beyond tomorrow?

Missouri clearly needs an independent, non-partisan, professional public issues entity that will address events that eventually become major, highly expensive programs. The best and most logical sponsor is the University of Missouri system, with the understanding that a research foundation would be completely protected and free of all political, academic and ad hominem interests.

With such assurances, experts in a wide variety of fields could begin to view Missouri's future without regard to the next general election or the next majority party occupying the state Capitol. Without such studies, Missouri's journey through the Land of Oz remains both inevitable and unimpeded.

~Jack Stapleton is the editor of the Missouri News and Editorial Service.