Charles H. Clay, a forefather of Met Council

In 1949, Charles H. Clay and a handful of college students sat down to talk about public policy and come up with ideas on how to make government run better. That meeting at the University of Minnesota was the start of Clay's career in public and civic affairs and eventually led to his role heading a committee that was responsible for getting the Legislature to form the Metropolitan Council.

Clay was a member of the Civic Caucus, a nonpartisan organization offering ideas for Minnesota government. He also proposed solutions to state public policy problems as a member of the Citizens League right up until his death last Sunday, said Verne Johnson, a longtime friend and chairman of the Civic Caucus.

Clay, of Edina, died of congestive heart failure at Allina Hospice in St. Paul at age 83.

"He had a deep love for politics and was really civic-minded," said Dick McGuire, of Bloomington, who worked with him at the Soo Line Railroad, where Clay began in the 1950s. "You could talk about that with him for hours."

Clay began his legal career as a law clerk for Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Oscar Knutson before taking a position with the Soo Line Railroad. He worked for the railroad for 30 years, rising to the position of executive vice president-assistant to the president before leaving in 1984.

He went to work for the Head, Seifert & Vender Weide law firm and, with two partners, founded four short line railroads serving rural communities in North Dakota and Minnesota. The two largest were the Red River Valley & Western and the Twin Cities & Western railroads.

Clay loved the railroads and as a result chose a grave site in Lakewood Cemetery, near the Lake Harriet streetcar tracks, said Clay's son Sheldon, of Edina.

Clay served on the Edina school board in the early 1970s when it approved plans for the former Edina West High School (now Edina High School). He also served on the board of directors for the former Deaconess Hospital. Clay was a member of Normandale Lutheran Church in Edina.

In his retirement years, Clay took a liking to poetry and often wrote poems for friend's and relative's birthdays, and sent the family Christmas letters in the form of a poem, Sheldon said.

Clay also is survived by his wife, Audrey Jorgenson Clay, of Edina; daughter Janis Clay, of Minneapolis; son Steven, of Minneapolis; sisters Joyce Dickson, of Maple Grove, and Patricia Kangas, of Richfield, and six grandchildren.