From this day forth there shall be a row of seats saved for "Citizen Journalists" at every Full Council meeting. The Conservative overlords have recognised that there is a hard-core group of tweeters and bloggers who attend these meetings and publish what is said or happens for good/ill.
It also means that should there be a repeat of Thursday night then, unless they cause a similar disturbance, they will not be ejected and can continue scrutinising and reporting.
This is good news for politicos and activists (as long as they've reserved their seat that morning) who can transcend any angry mob.
In a modern democracy it is time we looked at recording / videoing and streaming key meetings of public significance not evicting ppl.
— Tris Osborne (@cllrtrisosborne) January 24, 2014
It does however throw up an interesting question, one that Labour Councillor Tristan Osborne has asked before, and that is one of greater transparency and that maybe these meetings and scrutiny meetings should be live streamed onto the net and archived so that more people can see how the council reaches it's decisions. At the moment, not all of us have the ability to down tools and abandon families to go to these meetings regularly and should they be available on line we could see them for ourselves and not just rely on the Medway Messenger to report these issues.This is a good move for local democracy, it is just a shame that its announcement was in the shadow of such a bad night before.
Maybe Medways Councilors are starting to realise that Medway Residents do bite back, we have had enough of their arrogant self serving ways and this shows they are worried. Well they should be because the real revolt is only just beginning. Jarrett for starters plus any councilor who dares block and ignore constituents as many in Medway do, must be sacked and moved on permanently
ReplyDelete