| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Whose quote this is about 'Around Ealing' | |
| Posted by: | Phil Taylor | |
| Date/Time: | 01/04/09 11:32:00 |
| Dawn, It is not hypocritical to change your mind or at least develop your ideas a bit. You might expect me to have changed my views after three years of actual experience as a councillor. I still think that there is too much self promotion by the state, certainly there is too much money is spent on it. I do think though that Around Ealing stays the right side of the line. For a net cost of £85K a year (the same budget as the old quarterly version), or 5p per copy delivered to your door, I think residents get useful, non-partisan information about their council. My original comments came when the previous administration moved AE from quarterly to monthly just a few months before the local elections. It seemed a little cheeky to say the least. Since then two things have happened. The Ealing comms people have been good at pulling in advertising revenue to cover their costs (which I had previously doubted they could do) and the Gazette has been consistently unwilling to cover council related issues in enough depth. They have lots of material to cover and it is unrealistic that they are going to tell people what is happening at the Michael Flanders Day Centre or help us to educate people to keep off school zig-zags to take two examples from the latest issue. I challenge Eric and you to pull anything out of the last issue of Around Ealing that is "political" and not just straight information about what is going on in the borough. The council as an organisation is, I think, entitled to find the cheapest and most effective way of informing the public about what it does. Do you want to know when surgeries are? Are you interested in holiday rubbish collections? Do you want to know about school holiday activities for children? You might not like the pieces about littering or zig-zag parking but the council does have a duty to let people know what the rules are and to encourage people to follow them. What bit exactly offends you? |