Translated material
From the eyes of the people
Sergei Sobyanin closed meetings of the capital's government
The work of the Moscow City Hall, already quite closed to the public, may become even less public. At least today’s meeting of the capital’s government, which will be held for the first time by the new mayor Sergei Sobyanin, will be held behind closed doors. “You don’t have to worry tomorrow. The press no longer enters the city hall. Wait for special orders,” Galina Sugak, responsible for press relations at the Moscow City Hall, told Vremya Novostei. It is still unclear whether this mode of operation of the capital’s government will become permanent, but this initiative of the executive branch has supporters in the legislative branch. United Russia deputies in the Moscow City Duma are confident that some previously public procedures in the mayor’s office need to be given “the status of some kind of secrecy.” “There are, for example, issues of security for the city and Muscovites and other issues that should not be brought up for wide discussion,” Andrei Metelsky, leader of the United Russia faction in the Moscow City Duma, told Vremya Novostei.With the coming to power of the new mayor, city officials immediately started talking about serious changes in the work schedule of the mayor's office. The meetings of the metropolitan government themselves, for example, can now be postponed from Tuesday to Wednesday, which is why the rules of work of the Moscow City Duma, which holds its plenary meetings on this day, may also change. In addition, the traditional mayoral briefing, which previously took place on Mondays at 9:30 a.m., will most likely be moved to Tuesdays at 11:00 a.m.
However, key changes in the operating mode of the capital's government will be associated with the skills and habits of Sergei Sobyanin, acquired during his work in the Russian government. As Deputy Prime Minister and Chief of Staff of the Federal Government, Mr. Sobyanin, for example, oversaw the Electronic Government project. The mayor's office is confident that the principles of a centralized information infrastructure and minimal personal contact will form the basis for the work of the new Moscow government. “Meetings are the most expensive type of management activity. Therefore, Sobyanin prefers less time-consuming and more effective forms of communication,” Interfax cites a source in the city administration. According to officials, “the new mayor communicates with subordinates electronically.” “He prefers to ask questions and get answers to them over the Internet. Sobyanin is an experienced user, with a computer familiarity, - the mayor’s office is already pointing out.
Apparently, city administration employees will adopt the style of working with media representatives from their federal colleagues. By the way, information from meetings of the Russian government is provided to the press in very measured doses. Journalists, as a rule, can observe the progress of federal officials discussing certain issues only within the framework of the so-called protocol filming.
So far, as officials assure, not a single accredited publication will be allowed to work in the capital’s mayor’s office. An exception can only be made for the Moscow TV-Center channel, which has traditionally been the mouthpiece of the capital’s bureaucrats. However, changes occurred in the network of this channel after the appointment of the new mayor. In particular, the “Facing the City” program, which under Yuri Luzhkov, officials used to explain their initiatives to citizens, has already disappeared from the air. According to some reports, after some time the program may appear again, but in a “modernized format.”
According to Andrei Metelsky, the transition to closed meetings is connected with the discussion of issues of internal regulations of the capital government. “A new leader has arrived with his own demands, and the work of the government is being streamlined,” the deputy believes. According to him, no more than an hour will be devoted to economic issues, namely the city’s power supply scheme for the period until 2020, during today’s meeting. In addition, at the last moment, the new head of government removed from the agenda the issue of “improving interaction between the Moscow government and organizations of the wholesale food complex on the principles of public-private partnership.” The rest of the time, officials will apparently be discussing organizational issues. “There is no need to immediately bring this to the attention of the public,” says the leader of the capital’s United Russia.
However, the Moscow City Duma does not rule out that working behind closed doors could become permanent for the capital’s government. According to Mr. Metelsky, “individual meetings of the Moscow government should be closed.” “We have such meetings in the Moscow City Duma,” he recalled. And this, Mr. Metelsky is sure, will not in any way affect the image and style of work of the new mayor and his team. “The Moscow mayor’s policy will remain open, accessible and transparent,” Andrei Metelsky is confident.
The head of the executive committee of the Moscow city regional branch of United Russia, Moscow City Duma deputy Viktor Seliverstov, does not exclude the possibility that from now on the work of city authorities will become less public. “But I’m not afraid of that. All decisions are then presented on the Internet anyway,” he said in a conversation with a Vremya Novostei correspondent. It is noteworthy that Mr. Seliverstov suggests focusing specifically on the experience of the federal government in matters of openness of bureaucratic meetings. “But I don’t think that all meetings will be secret,” he reassured.
The leader of the Yabloko party, Sergei Mitrokhin, also connects the new regulations of the mayor’s office with the previous experience of working as the capital’s mayor. “Sobyanin will not abandon the installations acquired during his work in the Russian government. And one of them is precisely that when discussing state problems the press has nothing to do in the meeting room,” Mr. Mitrokhin told Vremya Novostei. He sees restricting press access to the work of the Moscow government as a direct threat to the publicity of decisions made by city officials. “The electronic government will issue already agreed upon decisions, but the process itself, from which the details become clear, will be closed,” the oppositionist is sure.