Out of step

Governor of the Pskov region Mikhail Kuznetsov proposes to reduce the term of office of the head of the administration of Pskov to one year

On October 31, 2008, during the 30th session of the Pskov City Duma, the deputies considered the question “On amendments and additions to the Charter of the municipal formation “City of Pskov” submitted by the Governor of the region Mikhail Kuznetsov. The essence of the changes proposed by Mr. Kuznetsov boils down to reducing the term of office of the head of the Pskov administration from five years to one year.

Any changes made to the “city constitution” follow a certain pattern, which involves their public discussion. The deputies initially wanted to schedule public hearings on this issue on December 15, 2008, but eventually appointed them on the 8th, following the persuasion of Nikolai Tsvetkov, chairman of the local self-government committee of the regional administration [ 1 ] .

Let us recall that in March 2009, after the term of office of Mikhail Khoronen, elected in 2004 to the post of mayor of Pskov for a term of five years, ends, the provisions of the new city charter will come into force, according to which the administration of Pskov will be headed by a person deprived of any political hired city manager opportunities. The city Duma should conclude a contract with him, for consideration of which the candidates for applicants will be presented by a special commission, 2/3 of whose members, in turn, are appointed by the governor.

Thus, it would seem that Mikhail Kuznetsov would already be guaranteed to control the head of the city administration. And it is obvious that in conditions when the vast majority of deputies of the City Duma are guided by the opinion of the governor, the choice of the candidate for the head of the city administration is a purely technical issue that will be decided in principle in the House of Soviets, and not in the City Duma or somewhere else.

As a matter of fact, once the mechanism of the process of determining the candidacy of the city manager has already begun to work. In December 2007, when practically no one had any doubts that Mikhail Horonen would take advantage of the chance that fell to him and, having accepted the proposed mandate of a deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, would leave the post of mayor ahead of schedule, the regional authorities began emergency consultations on the candidacy of the new head of the executive power of Pskov [ 2 ].

There is no doubt that this issue would have been resolved more or less quickly, but the Pskov mayor unexpectedly mixed up the cards of the regional authorities by refusing to take the seat of a member of the federal parliament.

Nevertheless, on the eve of the "X hour", when the mayor's seat finally turns out to be vacant, the regional authorities considered it necessary to strengthen their control over the future head of the city executive, radically reducing his powers. As follows from the explanatory note sent by the governor to the City Duma, "the introduction of such a period will ensure real responsibility for the activities of the city administration to the population."

The deputy head of Pskov, Ivan Tsetsersky, who heads the Committee on Legal Affairs and Local Self-Government in the City Duma, in a commentary to the Club of Regions website, explained that, according to the governor’s plan, “this will be an annual version of reapproval: if a person does not cope with his duties, he is not reapproved for the next term. And if you appoint a city manager for five years, then if he violates the contract, we will have to go to court and prove for a long time that he violates this contract.”

The last statement, however, is rather controversial. In September 2008, with an interval of ten days, the heads of the administrations of the city of Pechora and the Pechora region were fired. In both cases, the reason for dismissal was "a single gross violation of official duties." In order to dismiss the city managers, the heads of the Pechora and Pechora district did not need to go to court: they simply used the Labor Code of the Russian Federation [ 3 ].

And although Vera Yakovleva, the head of the administration of the city of Pechora, was eventually reinstated by the court [ 4 ], the right of the head of the municipality to dismiss the head of the administration by his order was not challenged. So it is easier to get rid of the head of the municipal economy who did not justify the hopes than it might seem at first glance.

However, according to observers, the goal of Mikhail Kuznetsov's initiative is not so much the future head of the Pskov administration (his fate is now not particularly enviable, since he is unlikely to be able to plan his activities for more than a year), but the current head of Pskov. In fact, his influence on the chief city supply manager, if the next reform of the city Charter takes place, is reduced to a minimum: all the threads of management will ultimately be concentrated in the hands of the governor, who owns a controlling stake in the commission that proposes candidates for managers to the City Duma.

Thus, the adoption of amendments to the Charter of Pskov should become for the deputies of the City Duma a kind of test of loyalty to the head of the Pskov region. So far, representatives of the Duma have been speaking rather cautiously on this issue. According to Ivan Tsetsersky, “we still need to figure it out, hold consultations with various kinds of politicians at our level, consult with representatives of local government in Moscow, and find out if there is such an experience in the Russian Federation.”

So far, nothing is known about the results of the research of the Pskov Duma members. On the other hand, information about the experience of their Novgorod colleagues was widely disseminated. In 2006, on the sixth attempt, the Charter of Veliky Novgorod was registered, according to which direct elections of the mayor of the city were canceled and the position of the head of administration hired under the contract was introduced.

Just as in Pskov, this norm has caused numerous controversies. True, unlike Pskov, among her opponents was the governor of the Novgorod region, Mikhail Prusak. Nevertheless, the deputies insisted on their own. However, after the appointment of Sergei Mitin as governor of the Novgorod region, "the concept has changed." And after consultations with the new head of the region, the deputies of the Novgorod City Duma backed off, returning the city to the popular election of the mayor.

In neighboring Pskov, there is no question of voluntary amendments of this kind to the Charter, approved by the Duma members and the governor. The recent attempt by representatives of the mayor’s office to challenge the new city charter in the arbitration court, thereby solving the problem all at once, did not materialize [ 5 ].

In the meantime, observers note that the governor's initiative to reduce the term of office of the head of the administration of the regional center turned out to be surprisingly inconsistent with the latest trends from the federal center. In particular, Dmitry Medvedev's proposal to increase the term of office of the President of Russia and deputies of the State Duma.

However, it can be assumed that if Mikhail Kuznetsov had the power to change the term of office of the governor of the Pskov region, he would have advocated for its increase.

Maxim KISELEV

1 See: E. Shiryaeva. More than a game // "PG", No. 44 (413) of November 5-11, 2008

2 See: M. Kiselev. By screws! // "PG", No. 48 (367) of December 12-18, 2007

3 See: M. Kiselev. Check in two moves // "PG", No. 38 (407) of September 24-30, 2008

4 See: M. Kiselev. Played // "PG", No. 43 (412) of October 29 - November 4, 2008

5 See: M. Kiselev. In another way // "PG", No. 38 (407) of September 24-30, 2008