Townspeople refused to discuss the draft City Charter

The draft of the new Charter of the city did not arouse any particular interest among ordinary citizens.

At least, at public hearings in the City Council, where it was possible to voice their comments and recommendations on the project, there were no mere mortals who wanted to contribute to the creation of such an important document for the life of the city. On duty, the hall was attended only by members of the organizing committee, representatives of the legislative and executive authorities, as well as experts in the field of law, who gave an assessment of this legal document.

It should be noted that the “indifferent” public ignored not only the very procedure of public hearings. Until May 16, the townspeople were also given the opportunity to make their own amendments and proposals to the Charter by sending them to the organizing committee. As the press center of the mayor's office assured us, information about this was posted a month before the hearings in Komsomolskaya Pravda, Vecherny Novosibirsk, as well as bulletins of local governments. In addition, relevant press releases were sent to all the media. The project itself was also published in newspapers, and the population could familiarize themselves with the text. So there is no need to talk about an information vacuum in this case. And at the same time, according to Anna Oseeva, deputy head of the department for public relations of the City Council, neither by phone nor by e-mail, voiced in the media, such proposals were received by the organizing committee. To the question - "is it possible to catch up and make your proposals now, after the public hearings?" - and the deputies and representatives of the administration responded negatively, although at a press conference devoted to public hearings on the adoption of the Charter, the chairman of the City Council, Nadezhda Boltenko, called for such proposals to be made.

• Those amendments that were accepted for consideration came mainly from experts, the City Prosecutor's Office, the Ministry of Justice, where the Charter will be registered. As for the deputies, only two or three made their recommendations at the hearings. Now these amendments are to be considered at the City Council, and people's deputies still have time to be active and make their proposals, - says Renat Suleymanov, - the population can participate in the process only through deputies.

However, the low activity of the population in this matter, by no means, surprises either deputies or representatives of the city administration. Sergei Neshumov, head of the mayor's office press center, for example, explained the situation by saying that the main point in the formation of the Charter - bringing it into line with federal law 131 on the general principles of local self-government - is of a legal nature, and this is of little interest to the broad masses.

• Apparently, citizens do not associate their rights with the Charter of the City of Novosibirsk - Renat Suleimanov also expressed his opinion on this matter.

As for the fundamental changes in the Charter, there are few of them, in the opinion of the deputies I interviewed. The most significant point concerns the institution of the recall of the mayor and deputies of the City Council. The procedure promises to be difficult, and today there is a lot of controversy around this issue. There are interesting thoughts on other points as well. Eduard Kozhemyakin, for example, stands up for the purity of the Russian language and intends to convey to the deputies of the City Council the simple idea that there is a Russian analogue for every foreign word. A Russian mayor or mayor, for example, sounds no worse than mayor, a word of French origin. If we take into account that the President himself speaks about the careful attitude to the Russian language, then perhaps it is really worth restructuring the vocabulary of the new city Charter in the Russian way?