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An antiquated airport jeopardizes a region's economic health but the county of Albany, New York, operator of the airport, lacks funds to undertake much-needed capital improvements. In this context, the county executive seriously examines privatization-selling the airport off to a private developer with a background in airport management. This case is designed to permit a full discussion of the potential merits and drawbacks of privatization of such a large public facility. It raises such issues as monopoly power and ease of access to capital. The decision to permit the Albany privatization is ultimately made by the Federal Aviation Administration, thus allowing the case to raise national as well as local issues. HKS Case Number 1024.0

An antiquated airport jeopardizes a region's economic health but the county of Albany, New York, operator of the airport, lacks funds to undertake much-needed capital improvements. In this context, the county executive seriously examines privatization-selling the airport off to a private developer with a background in airport management. This case is designed to permit a full discussion of the potential merits and drawbacks of privatization of such a large public facility. It raises such issues as monopoly power and ease of access to capital. The decision to permit the Albany privatization is ultimately made by the Federal Aviation Administration, thus allowing the case to raise national as well as local issues. HKS Case Number 1024.1

In 1980, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services faced a crisis. Over 700 black children in Cook County, including 69 infants, waited for adoption while the agency was unable to find black parents. Director Gregory L. Color, with his deputy gordon Johnson, approached Father George Clements, a black activist Chicago priest in the Baptist community. From those meetings came One Church, One Child, a plan to use pastors of the black churches as spokesmen to reach the community. Coler and Johnson faced several hurdles as they asked a private religious institution to help solve a public agency's problem. They had to change negative attitudes both in the black community; which had grown to distrust the state agency, and among a staff suspicious of change who would implement the black adoption program. They had to revamp state laws that inhibited the adoption process. And they had to change bureaucratic procedures that had proven ineffective. The accompanying video exhibit brings to life the successful strategy of the One Church, One Child program, focusing on a presentation in a black church designed to encourage adoptions. In addition, the video includes retrospective comments from the program's administrators and vignettes of families who have adopted children as a result of the program. This case will challenge students to examine the assumptions that limit bureaucracies. Available in Spanish translation. HKS Case Number 856.0