I try to be nothing but honest. The other day, I blogged about my admiration for City Councilor Russ Stewart. In a recent conversation, Russ pointed out the fact that the Housing and Redevelopment Authority (HRA) was empowered to levy taxes to help provide needed housing in Duluth. In my blog, I simply made this fact apparent. Perhaps I should have reconsidered disclosing what I thought our members should know.

Those who advocate appropriating $3M from the Community Investment Trust Fund (commonly called the street improvement fund, or simply casino money) to build homes for low and moderate income families were infuriated by my disclosure. Yet it is important to understand that I was not implying a lack of support for this important initiative. Simply, I wanted to encourage our community to engage in good and thorough public discourse.

Instead of simply forging ahead in any given initiative, it might behoove our community to put all things on the public table: pros, cons, advantages, disadvantages, and so forth. Making the public aware of all the angles associated with any one given project is a way to garner community support. By engaging in honest public debate, people have the opportunity to have their questions answered and become educated about all aspects of any given issue.

Clearly, had we been able to debate openly about the Great Lakes Aquarium or the proposed golf course in a healthy, community-wide manner, we might be talking about the aquarium’s success and counting dollars earned from a new golf course today. Instead, we all have to suffer a loss because of these less than successful endeavors.

My hope is that the Housing 1000 group – of which the Chamber affiliates itself - is successful in attaining the needed $3M dollars to move this housing project forward. Yes, we need to rebuild our crumbling streets and sewers. Yes, we have deteriorating infrastructure that needs attention. Yes, it is commonly held that the HRA is supposed to provide for families with low and moderate incomes when, in fact, they cannot provide homes themselves. In light of all this, it is my sincere hope that the Housing 1000 group is successful.

Yet, the HRA has its hands full. Evidently, they cannot do more. Seemingly, the HRA has faced severe budget cuts over the last several years, despite the need for its services in our community. Funding cuts have limited the HRA’s abilities at a time when demands are on the upswing. Section 8 subsidies from the Federal Government were cut. The HRA came to the rescue and made sure nobody – neither renter nor landlord – was put out on the street. The HRA did the right thing.

This leads me to my second point: In a time when demand is at an all time peak and there is little ability to extract additional taxes or squeeze more services out of less resources, we need to examine our priorities to make sure the needs of the people are met. The Chamber board debated this issue and reached the conclusion that using the trust fund to support the Housing 1000 initiative is appropriate – it’s the right thing to do for our community.

My only wish is that our community would challenge itself to engage in public discourse when issues such as the Housing 1000 project and others arise.