According to Odessa City Council, the next session is scheduled for September 28, 2022. The previous session was mixed - some deputies were present online, some were in the meeting hall. This raised questions among citizens about the legitimacy of the decisions made, but the head of the council, Gennadiy Trukhanov, assured that everything is going according to the law and regulations.
In view of the great public interest of Odesa residents in the meetings of the Odesa City Council and issues adopted by deputies - experts NGO "Attestation of Local Council Deputies" analyzed the preparations for the session on September 28 and formed their remarks.
WHAT WILL BE THE FORMAT OF THE SESSION ON SEPTEMBER 28?
The previous session of the city council, the first full one during the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine, took place in a hybrid format. Some of the deputies were present in the hall, and some were online.
The legal basis for holding a meeting in this format was the mayor's order "Procedure for remote meetings of the Odesa City Council under martial law".
Announcing the session on September 28, the Odesa City Council noted that it will take place in the session hall. The previous hybrid session was also announced. The fact that some deputies will participate in voting remotely was only learned by the public and media representatives after the fact.
The remote format of the session was mostly negatively perceived by both public representatives and individual deputies in the hall.
The NGO "Certification of Deputies of Local Councils" also draws the attention of all deputies of the Odesa City Council to the fact that personal presence in the meeting hall is not only the duty of a deputy, but also a demonstration of unshakable will and awareness of one's political responsibility to the voters in the conditions of war.
WILL THERE BE CHANGES TO THE REGULATIONS OF THE COUNCIL?
Formally, the procedure for conducting remote meetings is valid until appropriate changes are made to the Regulations. At the last session, a discussion arose between deputies and officials regarding the legal grounds for the mayor's sole approval of the Order regulating the activities of the entire council.
The work order of the council is approved exclusively by the deputies. Currently, it remains unknown whether the relevant meetings of standing commissions, consultations of deputy groups regarding the development of proposals for amendments to the Regulations have taken place. The published preliminary agenda also lacks a draft decision on amendments to the Regulations.
ACTIVITIES OF DEPUTY COMMITTEES
12 permanent commissions have been created in the Odesa City Council. The main purpose of the commissions is the preliminary consideration of issues on the agenda of the sessions.
According to experts, information about the meetings of the standing commissions of the Odesa City Council is the most closed. To date, on the website of the city council, it was possible to find only two announcements of meetings of standing commissions, at which issues of the agenda of the planned session should be considered: on September 21, a meeting of the commission on land issues and on September 26, a meeting of the budget commission.
Some information about the actual holding of meetings is reported by the deputies themselves on Facebook. Thus, according to the deputies, a meeting of the budget commission was held on September 9, a meeting of the commission on housing and communal services was held on September 13, and on education on September 14. In their comments, the deputies also write about holding a meeting of the commission on communal property on September 16.
Therefore, we must state that the results of the deputies' work in the main type of their activity — commission meetings — are completely closed to Odesa residents and media representatives.
WHEN WILL THE DEPUTY PORTAL BE OPEN?
The deputy portal was closed at the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation. The issue of resuming its work is raised both by the community and by the city council members themselves.
However, the city hall refers to cyber attacks and is in no hurry to restore the website. Currently, the city council is not taking any action either to restore the portal, at least in a limited mode, or to develop an alternative platform for interaction between deputies, executive bodies and voters.
The only recent step towards openness of information about deputies was the publication of the list of elected officials and their e-mail addresses on the city's official website.
FORMATION OF THE SESSION AGENDA
Some draft decisions for the session scheduled for September 28 were made public on September 14, 16 and 20.
Compliance with the legislative requirements regarding the publication of draft decisions 10 days before the day of the regular session is not fulfilled, which does not allow deputies to prepare for the session in advance, and the community to learn about what issues will be considered by the council.
In general, according to the NGO "Certification of Local Council Deputies", all questions regarding the organization of the work of the Odessa City Council come from a simple and logical thesis: the city of Odesa is not currently a place of active hostilities, therefore the restrictions that were introduced regarding openness and transparency activities of the city council at the beginning of spring 2022, should be reviewed.
DEPUTIES OF CITY THEFT
Deputies of the Odesa City Council, who were elected by the residents of the city, and whose interests they promised and should represent and protect, should work according to these principles, and not be dependent on the actions of the executive power. Such a state of affairs may in the future lead to the fact that the deputies will actually be removed from the decision-making process and the mechanisms of control over the implementation of these decisions. After all, the basis of local self-government is precisely the deputies elected by the community, who form the city's development plan for implementation by the executive committee, and not the other way around.
