Calm before the thought

Deputies of the Pskov City Duma held an exemplary session

... The session passed quickly and calmly; Having worked in a concentrated and thoughtful way, the deputies considered the entire agenda for one hour. Fantastic? Not at all. The 47th regular meeting of the Pskov City Parliament turned out to be just such.

The session was attended by 13 deputies out of 17 possible. Particularly noticeable was the absence of Sergei Kalinin, the newly elected chairman of the Duma's municipal economy committee. The seat on the right hand of the chairman was also empty - neither the mayor nor his first deputy came to the session. Even the number of visitors was much less than usual.

Was the absence of all this public a cause or a consequence, but, nevertheless, a fact: the deputies behaved unusually. They did not quarrel, did not start discussions from scratch, did not boycott the vote, and did not even bore the speakers with questions. The honorary title "Most Constructive Deputy" can be cut into pieces and distributed to every second.

Although there was nothing to argue about - only six questions! The first of them - on the approval of the agreement between the administrations of the city and the region on the "bus debt" - the Duma managed to discuss even in the process of its preparation and signing. Now they unanimously voted "for", not embarrassed by Nikolai Lyzhin's vague thoughts about "past, present and future debts in the conditions of the unaccepted budget."

Then they voted no less unanimously for raising the wages of employees of municipal institutions. Here, too, everything was clear - part of the necessary funds is available in the city treasury, part - will be covered by subsidies from the regional budget, the decision on which was made at the same moment at the session of the regional Assembly.

Some revival could arise when discussing the issue of liquidating the city department of social protection of the population. But the speaker, the head of that same department, Ekaterina Minicheva, looked rather pleased than upset. She told those who did not know that, according to Law No. 122-FZ, the function of social protection of the population is transferred to the level of the subject of the Federation. The liquidation of the department is formal - it will be transferred to the regional subordination as a territorial department of social protection for the city of Pskov. There is no fear of layoffs; according to the standards, the social service in Pskov can have 66 staff positions, and only 45 people worked in the city government.

After the vote, Duma Chairman Leonid Trifonov spoke warmly about the work of the liquidated administration and thanked Ekaterina Minicheva "for everything." “Well, we will work with you!” - she replied carelessly, not feeling the moment and not wanting to switch to a lyrical way.

In conclusion, the deputies agreed to publish a draft decision on changes to the City Charter (it is necessary to remove the newly liquidated department from the administration structure [ 1 ]), considered two additional issues and peacefully dispersed. The whole job was done in one hour and five minutes. Thus, the deputies have saved a lot of energy for the next 48th session, when they will finally have to consider the new Charter of Pskov and, possibly, the city budget.

This is how the Pskov City Duma can work in different ways. On the one hand, I want, of course, to exclaim: “it would always be like that!”. But on the other hand, there is nothing to write about ...

Svetlana PROKOPIEVA.

1 There is a certain paradox here: on the one hand, it is impossible not to make these changes to the Charter, as the law requires, and on the other hand, they cannot be adopted without asking the residents of the city - another new law requires any changes to the Charter to be submitted for “public hearings ". The publication of the draft decision is a kind of compromise: yes, the townspeople will be “advised”, but their opinion will hardly mean anything.