It seems more training needs to be done on open government, and since Unruh lost her city council race in Tea yesterday (24/33 – That’s the vote count, not percentage) she will have plenty of time to figure it out.

She did a presentation yesterday on a Sioux Falls Housing Summit during the Sioux Falls City Council informational meeting. While the concept is a good idea, it ignores the whole purpose of having a public summit without making it available to the public. Yes, the public input sessions later in the day ARE open to the public w/o paying a registration fee, but there are some other issues with this summit.

• They are only asking people who are basically (dirt) poor to comment about housing. Most of the people who are affected by affordable housing are actually people who are working and struggling to pay rent or mortgage and spreading themselves thin working multiple jobs. These are the biggest ‘chunk’ of people that need to be served, but see, there is very little ‘government handouts’ for these folks so they focus on the very poor and underserved so they can gobble up that grant money. Who wants to hear from the working poor anyway? Please, get back to work!

• The event is NOT being filmed (or planned to be filmed) and they are hosting it on a Thursday instead of a Saturday when persons from the public could attend. This of course is done on purpose so the bureaucrats don’t have to work on a Saturday for the people they SHOULD be working for, the public. We would hate to inconvenience them while collecting a paycheck from us.

• They are charging a $20 fee for people to attend a public event. They argue this is to pay for the grub. Couldn’t they find a sponsor for the grub? The past mayor used to host a Saturday neighborhood conference that was FREE, with FREE food at a public venue (The Orpheum) and was filmed. Even if the most transparent mayor in the history of our city (snarc) can figure this out, I’m sure a Tea, SD resident can figure it out.

Once again, in attempt to make all the Harvardy, Bloombergy, New Yorky peeps happy about PTH’s night courses on leadership and innovation, the administration is missing the bigger picture about serving the public . . . it’s about serving the public.

But will admit, something needs to be done. I do like this portion of the proposal though;

Obama’s $275 billion plan — announced on Wednesday — doesn’t compel banks and other lenders to modify troubled mortgages. Instead, it provides a menu of incentives that may or may not prove sufficient in reaching the goal of helping 9 million homeowners.

Unlike in the past, this plan only encourages banks to participate, instead of forcing them to. The other good part about the plan is once the entire mortgage debacle stops spiraling out of control it will stabablize home prices and help all homeowners who have equity in their homes. This just isn’t about helping people who are facing forclosure, it is also about helping all homeowners save the equity in their biggest investment. Makes sense to me. I try not to take what Cantor and Boehner have to say to seriously.