Helicopter Jim in a tailspin on blogging

It's impossible to say for certain, but there are reckoned to be more than 100 million bloggers worldwide.
Certainly in the space of just one minute this morning, 628 new blog posts were made (source: Gary's Social Media Count)
It's a figure that's either very significant or totally unimportant, depending on your view.
"So many bloggers is a sign of a healthy community that is ever-seeking to share information and opinion."
"So many bloggers is a sign of millions of sad sacks who have nothing better to do with their time - and who cares about their opinions anyway."
Take your pick.
What does surprise us is the way that blogging has galvanised Boston Borough Council.
One councillor began blogging and then stopped because he was subjected to an irrelevant official complaint. We had hoped he might start again, but sadly this does not appear to be the case.
The Dear Leader began blogging briefly but stopped because of the controversy of whether his blog was a personal one or a party one, plus issues over whether it should be produced using staff time and effort.
The jury is still out on that one, but somehow, like the Terminator, we reckon the Leader will be back.
The latest debate over blogging came at Monday's full council meeting, when Bypass Independent Councillor Jim Blaylock launched an attack on Conservative Councillor Raymond Singleton-McGuire's often controversial blog.
Councillor Blaylock launched a question at the Mayor, Councillor Maureen Dennis, asking if she supported the use of personal blogs by members - and what should the council do to ensure they are factually accurate and do not break either the Council’s Constitution or the Members Code of Conduct?
Silly question.
Firstly blogs are personal, so whether they have mayoral support or not is immaterial, and it would be a severe breach of individuals' freedom to try to tell them what they might or might not say.
Councillor Blaylock seems particularly exercised by the fact that Councillor Singleton-McGuire published an e-mail from a member of the public concerning a cabinet decision relating to the Geoff Moulder Pool controversy.
But his argument goes askew when he appear to suggest that this is breaking council rules because the information appeared in confidential documents.
The "leak" appears to have come from a member of the public in a widely circulated e-mail, and therefore the blame cannot be laid at Councillor Singleton-McGuire's door.
What he was doing was questioning a situation where he, as a councillor discovers what is going on in the council from an outside source who puts it into the public domain.
As all the discussion around the pool issue was carried out in a borough cabinet meeting, and as these meetings are exclusively attended by the Bypass Independents, any leak to a third party must surely have only come from one direction.
Ironically, in his biography on the council's website, Councillor Blaylock declares:- "by 'opening up' the council to the public in order to allow a greater understanding of how it actually works and how the decision making process operates, I hope to be able to encourage members of the public from all age groups to enter into public debate."
Presumably that excludes blogging ... unless the BBI controls it.

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.

Ark at this! Council wants flood action at last

An obscurely placed and almost invisible message from council leader Richard Austin appears on the front page of the borough's website.
No, he's not back into blogging just yet.
He's taking up cudgels on the need to do all we can to protect our area for future generations.
"One of the reasons it's so important in this area is because we need to protect our town and our farmland from the potential effects of climate change; across the North Sea people in Holland enjoy a 1:4000 protection from flooding – that means they are protected for a flood that could happen once in 4,000 years," he writes. "In Boston and the rest of England, our flood defences are only 1:200. Over the years this has been accepted as the norm, but the recent floods in Scotland and the concerns in Wales highlight the need to do more across the country."
In tandem with this, the council has produced a petition of sorts saying that it considers that the present flood defence design criteria are inadequate and call for them to be improved as a matter of urgency.
"In the United Kingdom flood defence schemes are designed to provide only a 1 in 200 year standard of protection for coastal defences and 1 in 100 year for fluvial defences.
This compares with a 1 in 4000 year standard provided in Holland for agricultural land and 1 in 10,000 year for built up areas.
"Boston Borough Council calls for funding for flood risk management to be increased to a level which allows all new projects to provide a level of protection nearer to that in Holland.
Attention is drawn to the need to robustly defend property but also high grade land as it is so important in safeguarding the food security of the nation.
The motion ends by calling on the council to send a delegation to present this resolution to an "appropriate minister" at Westminster.
At last!
Our part of the world has been on the brink in terms of flood risk for years, and now the powers that be have latched on to the fact.
Talk about kicking a dinosaur in the tail.....
Boston Eye has been banging on about this since Noah was a lad.
It's not just the threat of flooding - real as it is - that hangs over us.
We've previously drawn attention to the way that greedy insurance companies are taking advantage of home and business owners.
Quite recently we received evidence of one major insurance national ramping premiums by 20-25 per-cent a year over the past three years, and refusing to exclude flood cover when requested by customers who are finding it impossible to pay - putting them at risk of having to forego insurance altogether.
The reality is that whilst Boston is in a high risk area, we are generally fortunate when it comes to actual flooding.
This is something that should be pointed out to insurance companies in no uncertain terms before the borough starts to suffer more economic damage caused by reluctance by individuals and businesses to local here because they cannot get insurance.
And by the way....
Praiseworthy though it is to meet the "appropriate minister" at Westminster, wouldn't it be more prudent to include the appropriate "Shadow" at the same time.
We suspect that ministers will only be paying lip service to petitions at this stage of the game, and to really get some action, the borough should be making its pitch to the government in waiting.

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.

Can you hear me, mother?

According to the Royal National Institution for Deaf People, there are 8,945,000 deaf and hard of hearing people in the UK ... about 14 per-cent of the population - or four and a half Boston Borough councillors.
This is why we raised an eyebrow when we saw the item on last night's full council agenda to blow £28,000 on a sound system.
According to the report, "several" members of the council have hearing difficulties which are exacerbated by the acoustics of the rooms used for meetings in the Municipal Buildings, which result in them being unable to hear debates and therefore excluded from the democratic decision making process.
That's interesting in itself, because until now we thought that some councillors were excluded from the democratic decision making process simply because the ruling Bypass Independents group wanted it that way!
Apparently this exclusion also applies to members of the public who attend meetings and cannot clearly hear what is being said, which apparently does not encourage civic participation or fit with the council’s equalities agenda and associated responsibilities as - under the Disability Discrimination Act the Council has to make reasonable provision for people with disabilities, including hearing difficulties.
Looking at the photos of our councillors it's difficult to work out who might have hearing problems - although deciding which of them use hair colouring (not just the ladies!) is an easier matter.
On balance, we would have thought that there were fewer hearing impaired councillors in the present intake than there were in the previous administration which was notable for members who appeared to be in their dotage.

Even so, they managed to get through meetings without mechanical aids.
But if the council membership with impaired hearing mirrors the national statistics, then we are being asked to pay around £7,000 per councillor to provide a facility for them.
This assumes that all four and a half councillors attend the same meetings, which is unlikely except when the full council meets.
And, frankly, with so few councillors, couldn't they just sit nearer the front, when they could hear the proceedings.
Or why does the council not have induction loops installed in major meeting rooms if its duty to the disabled is suddenly so urgent.
We suspect that a small but influential number of members has started this debate, and are being pandered to.
If a room has poor acoustics, it should almost always be possible to rearrange the layout to overcome the problem.
Certainly, we find it hard to believe that so many members of the public attend council meetings, or that the problem is as bad as is suggested - except perhaps at occasional meetings of the Planning Committee when major issues are under debate.
We find the idea of spending so much money on a problem that can probably be solved for a fraction of the cost to be a monstrous waste of cash.
But we expect our argument will fall on deaf ears.

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.

Slamming the door on information

Back after a week's break, and sadly Boston seems little different than before we went away.
The same old Christmas lights are hanging limply in place once again, with stars that look more like starfish than sparkling symbols of peace and love.
Browsing the papers and the council's website is a depressing experience.
The papers seem to have little by way of news sense or interest in what's going on.
Our "new look" Standard has solved the problem of working by increasing type sizes so that there is now even less space taken up by stories.
And ironically, in a week which sees the paper celebrating the 100th birthday of a former proof reader, it boasts a higher number of literals (typographical mistakes) than usual.
Tonight sees the full council meeting, and once more we are disappointed to see that the two most important items on the agenda are again being discussed out of the sight and hearing of the press and public.
The issues under debate are market testing on cultural and leisure services, and a report on the council's management structure.
For those not in the know, this is done under Section 100(A)(iv) of the Local Government Act 1972, as amended by the Local Government (Access to Information)(Variation) Order 2006, on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraph 1, 3 & 4 of Schedule 12A of the Order.
We checked out the exact definition of what constitutes exempt information , and it comprises:
INFORMATION ...
... relating to any individual or which is likely to reveal the identity of an individual ...
... relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information) ...
... relating to any consultations or negotiations, or contemplated consultations or negotiations in connection with any labour relations matter arising between the authority or a Minister of the Crown and employees of, or office holders under, the Authority ...
... in respect of which a claim to legal professional privilege could be maintained in legal proceedings ...
... which reveals that the authority proposes a) to give under any enactment a notice under or by virtue of which requirements are imposed on a person; or b) to make an order or direction under any enactment ...
and information relating to any action taken or to be taken in connection with the prevention, investigation or prosecution of crime.
Put like that, a council could pretty well stop telling the ratepayers anything at all, and claim that it was justified under the section of the act - and there are doubtless many in office both appointed and elected who would dearly love to be able to do this.
Not only that, but we suspect that a large number of councillors don't even know the terms and conditions under which such prohibitions are placed on council agenda items, and if they did, would find it hard to justify them.
We recall a time when items like the ones now excluded from the public arena were discussed up to the point where the rulings of the act began to impinge - at which point the press and public were excluded.
Now, however, the door is firmly slammed in their faces.
The two issues under debate tonight are of great concern to the people of Boston.
If we are to be treated as unworthy of inclusion, then - at the very least - the council should tell us what went on as soon as possible after the meeting.

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.

Back next week

Boston Eye is taking a well earned break.
Barring emergencies, we will be back on Monday 9th November.
Meanwhile .....

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.