When I was elected president of the Boston City Council, I pledged to make the body more transparent by posting all dockets on the City of Boston’s website. This may sound like a small step, but getting the technology in place was more difficult than any of us expected. I’m happy to announce that the system is now live and you can now find PDFs of the orders, motions, and resolutions the Council will consider at our weekly meetings. Thanks to the city’s MIS department and the Clerk’s Office for their hard work in getting this program up and running.
It’s appropriate that we started posting dockets online this week, as one of the items I filed will move the Council’s May 20 meeting to English High School in Jamaica Plain, marking the first of several meetings my colleagues and I will hold in the community this year.
I am pleased to announce these important steps towards bringing government to residents, but there is much work left to be done. I am examining how we can overcome the technological obstacles and make all Council dockets fully searchable. I’m also in the early phases of looking at video technology that would allow anyone to do a keyword search of all Council meeting and hearing videos archived on the city’s website, and will take viewers directly to the point in the video where the requested term is mentioned.
I hope that these measures will make it easy for Bostonians to take an active role in their local government. I urge you to visit my website, mikerossboston.com, and use the suggestion box for other ideas for bringing government to the people of Boston.
Is there any reason that the PDFs can’t just be uploaded in their original, searchable text format rather than as scanned images?
Text needs to be searchable. Please avoid scanned images!
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p>Would you make available the stenographic machine record for public meetings of our Boston City Council?… Up to date more efficient scopist/stenographic software would include closed captioning on Council webcasts for people with hearing loss.
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p>We need a City Stenographer more familiar with the new advances in scopistry!
We need a Mayoral Directive and a City Council Order for the more routine transmittal of City Documents to the Government Documents Division of our Boston Public Library. Please contact the BPL President, email aeryan at bpl.org
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p>Some City Documents are available but we need the collections of City Documents to be ever more comprehensive, see also http://bpl.org/research/govdocs
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http://bpl.org/catalogs/
Anything that makes access easier for the public is a move in the right direction. Kudos. (BTW, the comments about making the doc searchable make sense.)
Not perfect, but a good start. Much appreciated.