Who needs the public?

Over the last few days on public radio they have discussed Mayor's new city budget, but was most interesting was the lack of public involvement. In August of 2012, Mayor Emanuel hosted a few town hall meetings open to the public to discuss the cities budget, but these meetings turned sour fast. Throughout the meeting Emanuel was greeted with boos over his proposed budget plans. Most individuals would attempt to figure out why these individuals were booing, by asking what specifically in the budget they disagreed with, but not Mayor Emanuel.
Emanuel, like a few politicians these days, struggles with the notion that people are questioning his decisions. Dick Simpson, a former independent alderman put it best about Emanuel; "Rahm is good on transparency in terms of putting things on the internet...He’s not so good on community participation and democracy".
 For the last 30 years the city of Chicago has held open public meetings, to allow the community to get involved on how the cities budget should divided, but this year Rahm Emanuel has no more to these meetings. This notion that an elected leader struggles to keep the community and public involved is nothing new to this country, but to see an elected official change a process that is over 30 years old is quite shocking.
Whether you are for or against Emanuel, is not important, but to see an elected official kick the public out of "open public meetings" is quite disturbing. Emanuel is putting his job first, before the city, which unfortunately is nothing new in the city of Chicago.
By holding closed door private meetings with selected groups and individuals, the Mayor is showing his lack of faith in the people that have elected him. In a country where people like to know what is going on in their city, Emanuel has chosen to shut the most important people out, the public.

http://www.newstips.org/2012/10/public-left-out-of-emanuels-budget/