Still time left for BBI to get act together

At the end of the year, we read of the decision to ditch a 'phone pilot which saw Boston residents ringing a Lincoln call centre with their environmental queries. The scheme ran for 16 months and wasted almost £10,000 of taxpayers' cash before it dawned on the powers that be in Boston that people in Lincoln lacked the local knowledge to answer queries from people in Boston.
Yet again, Boston has failed to grasp the obvious and abandoned a scheme which might well have worked had the people at the Lincoln end of the line been given a day or two's training.
The business of sharing does not seem to sit well with Boston Borough Council - or more specifically with the ruling Bypass Independent Party.
After a lot of gum gnashing, the council backed away from sharing back office services with South Holland and East Lindsey District Councils - a scheme that would have saved a fortune over five years.
The problem seemed to be that because of its pathetic financial situation, the council would have had to borrow the money needed to seed the scheme, whilst our more prudent neighbours had the cash in reserve.
So one financial problem generates another, the classic spiral of decline which we see so often.
So what is it about Boston Borough Council that seems to breed failure upon failure?
In recent months we have gained a steady insight into just how fractured life is in Worst Street.
We've glimpsed snatches of e-mails that show snide and patronising attitudes by the ruling Bypass Independents towards members of the opposition parties.
We've heard of the clashes that take place away from the eyes and ears of the press and public, and apparent abuses by politicians whose job is to facilitate the work of committees, not to hamstring it.
At the heart of all this is the obvious mindset of the BBI that whatever they want is right and that there is no alternative.
They refuse to debate important issues and try to control committee representation in the way that dictators like Castro or Kim Il Sung would have applauded.
If there's any humour to be found in all this, then what's so funny as the BBI seriously seem to regard themselves as politicians.
But with the exception of their Leader, who gained a smidgen of experience with Lincolnshire County Council, the rest came untried and untested to local government and by and large are still on the starting blocks after more than two and a half years.
To free Boston from the quicksand that this sorry leadership is drowning it in needs more than an Improvement Board. It requires a fundamental change of mindset by the leadership.
Majority rule should not be regarded as a licence to ride roughshod over anyone who has the temerity to disagree with you.
The BBI has 16 months to get its act together and produce a competent, listening authority that will work in the interests of the people of Boston, rather than its own narrow and rapidly failing agenda.
But somehow, we don't think that it will.

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