Stop by Lower 9, Obama is urged

The controversy over President Barack Obama's planned quickie visit to New Orleans this week continued Saturday, with members of the community group ACORN calling on the president to meet with Lower 9th Ward residents and the White House insisting that Obama is already familiar with local conditions because of five post-Katrina visits he made to the city as a senator.

During the past few days, Louisiana's U.S. senators and other officials expressed unhappiness about Obama's plans for a visit that, according to initial reports, was to include only one event. They said he needs to spend enough time on the ground to get a better understanding of the status of the city and region's recovery.

On Saturday, a group of Lower 9th Ward residents added their voice to the debate. Standing near the site of the critical 2005 rupture in the Industrial Canal, they asked Obama to visit their still mostly empty neighborhood.

And they don't want just a windshield tour from inside a chartered bus, they said.

In New Orleans, meaningful conversations must be conducted in a certain way, ACORN leader Vanessa Gueringer said.

"Here, we want to talk, we want you to listen, and then we want to hear what you think," she said. "And you need to take time for that type of conversation with people from this neighborhood and others like it," she said, her red ACORN shirt standing out against the sea of green weeds and grass behind her.

A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the president visited many New Orleans destinations during his previous trips, including the Lower 9th Ward, Musicians Village and Gentilly Woods.

What was missing then, the official said, was a chance to hear directly from a broad cross section of the community, and that is why Obama chose to make a town hall meeting a centerpiece of this trip....