Current members of Boston City Council aren’t good advocates of open government refusing to release the plain English stenographic record of the Public Meetings of Boston City Council. More complete than the summary called minutes, the stenographic record is available only in an undecipherable format while budgeted for with public funds !
Replacing current Boston City Council members with candidates that advocate open government is a priority that affects all the other issues.
The stenographic record can only be partially deciphered using open source Plover http://plover.stenoknight.com/
RFP Request for Bids for stenographic services are to be advertised this year of the RFP cycle every 3 years. Instead of more than $60,000 for stenographic services with the Stenograph machine Boston City Council should be using the free open source Plover http://groups.google.com/group/ploversteno
Of course, current practices are a fraud because Request for Bids not widely advertised as possible. Then the usual grandfathering in of the same stenographic services that cost more and have less features like no Captioning for hard of hearing on webcasts of Public Meetings of the City Council.
Proposed Staff Director Bernadette Moran Lally, less than the best people qualified for such role, isn’t good for a City Council advocating open government FOI Freedom Of Information Public Records principles which the City Council offices are not
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/03/07/boston-city-council-committee-recommends-murphy-associate-for-staff-director/jawiw3LMtqdbtIUK0dB2hO/story.html
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/03/07/boston-city-council-committee-recommends-murphy-associate-for-staff-director/jawiw3LMtqdbtIUK0dB2hO/comments.html
A new more appropriate title for the role would be better than the title Staff Director that is a misdirection. The person in that role takes responsibility for releasing or in this case not releasing public records of Boston City Council. Staff Directors at Boston City Council have violated public records FOI Freedom Of Information open government principles. More candidates are needed for Staff Director.
