It seems that the more important council meetings are the same as buses – you wait for one for ages and then two come along together.

So it is today, when Boston Borough Council’s Cabinet of Curiosities meets at 10 o’clock this morning, and the full council at 6-30 tonight.
Interestingly, the cabinet meeting confirms what we were saying yesterday, in that two of its agenda items spend some time discussing the need for a learning and development strategy for councillors.
Some may not need it, whilst others will benefit – and by association so will the voters – but we can think of a bunch of intractable members … most of them Tories … on whom all such efforts will be wasted.
Tonight’s council meeting sounds as if it will be a busy affair.
A bit like Banquo, whose ghostly appearances in Shakespeare’s Macbeth come at the most disconcerting moments, there are a couple of issues that simply won’t go away – parking charges for the disabled, and Boston Business “Improvement” District.
Boston Disability Forum will again be holding a silent protest outside the Worst Street council offices between 5.45 and 6.15pm.
The idea is to remind us that the meeting which approved the charges also denied the public the right to speak.
The Forum has also given advance notice of two letters which it would like to have read out at the meeting – which again was not allowed at the meeting where the vote was taken.
One of these quotes a senior physiotherapist in the Stroke Unit at Boston’s Pilgrim Hospital, who criticises the 30-minutes of extra “free” parking for blue badge holders – a time plucked  out of the air at random by some councillor or another - to allow extra time for the disabled to hobble around their shopping duties in the town.
“In my view and opinion,” says Simba Shahwe, “with an extensive experience of working with people with disabilities, I do not honestly think an extra 30 minutes for parking is sufficient time for most blue badge holders to have an equal opportunity to shop.”
Presumably, the council will be generous in victory, and at last allow the hoi polloi a chance to have their say – now that there is nothing for them to lose.
The ongoing debate on Boston BID continues with a question to town centre portfolio holder Councillor Derek Richmond – who is also a director of the BID.
It comes from Darron Abbott, who was a fellow director until he resigned in protest at the way the council and the BID handled the Boston Beat concert in Central Park before it was recently cancelled – entirely because of bad weather.
Mr Abbott  claims that the BID manager had organised the Boston Beat event but had apparently neglected to tell the public, or the levy payers – “but worst of all he failed to tell his Directors or get their authorisation to pay the event management company £10,000.
“The first the Directors knew of the event was at the Directors meeting on the on the 26th June.”
Mr Abbott asks Councillor Richmond: “As a Director of Boston BID representing Boston Borough Council, would he let me know what his and the Council’s position is on the behaviour of the BID manager? Do he and the Council condone the apparent misconduct or does he feel it is a lack of management of its staff member by the Chairman and its Directors?”
It will be interesting to see what sort of reception the council will give Boston Disability Forum this time around.
And it will be interesting to hear what Councillor Richmond has to say – given his hands-on role in Boston BID.
We say well done to Boston Disability Forum and Darron Abbott to refuse to be cowed by the bullies in blue – and we hope that no-one gives up chasing the council on issues such as these.

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

Our former blog is archived at: http://bostoneyelincolnshire.blogspot.com