While public servants remain responsible for assuring that solutions to public problems are consistent with laws, democratic norms, and other constraints, it is not a matter of their simply judging the appropriateness of community-generated ideas and proposals after the fact. Rather, it is the role of public administrators to make these conflicts and parameters known to citizens, so that these realities become a part of the process of discourse. Doing so not only makes for realistic solutions, it builds sitizenship and accountability.