The first year of the term of office of the new council and mayor V. Benkunskas: the capital elected a mayor who works half-time – MadeinVilnius.lt

For many years, the annual report of the work of the mayor and the council was a mandatory document that the city manager presented to the citizens of Vilnius every year so that they could see how the government’s obligations were being fulfilled. This tradition was introduced by Artūras Zuokas, Remigijus Šimašius supported it to some extent, and the mayor Valdas Benkunskas, after turning off the heating for the citizens, decided to warm up in warm countries instead of the report. Therefore, according to Artūrs Zuokas, the leader of the opposition in Vilnius, the chairman of the “Freedom and Justice” party, this work has to be done by the opposition.

The opposition held a meeting with the media in a symbolic place – near the Moscow House. During the election campaign, the mayoral candidate V. Benkunskas called their leveling to the ground the first and most important work of his term. A. Zuokas, who opposed him at that time, proposed to take over/nationalize that house and give it to the Ukrainian International School as compensation. Ukrainians still do not have the facilities they need.

Even the Ministry of the Environment already doubts whether the most rational decision is to demolish the building, because such a method is financially very expensive and costs millions of taxpayers’ money. “The Ministry is considering my repeatedly expressed proposal to use this building “for the benefit of the Ukrainian community”. By the way, Latvia successfully did that – it nationalized the Moscow House in Riga, and after the sale of the building, the funds will be allocated to Ukrainians suffering from the war,” said A. Zuokas.

V. Benkunskas promised not only to demolish, but also to build. However, it is difficult to fulfill the obligations given to the people of Vilnius, when the mayor already took vacation six times during those years and spent almost a third of his time on business trips. That is why Povilas Pinelis, elder of the social democratic faction of the Vilnius Council, reminded the mayor’s election promises. “V. Benkunskas promised the citizens of Vilnius that by 2026 the construction of the National Stadium will be completed in Vilnius, the Athletics Arena and the Rowing Base in Žirmūnai, the Extreme Sports Center on Tyzenhauzų Street, 3 new swimming pools, the Ice Arena on Jotvingių Street, 3 full-sized football fields and 5 multifunctional sports complexes. “Unfortunately, for now it does not seem that at least one project has been implemented, and the construction of the national stadium, which started during the elections, has stopped,” P. Pinelis said.

The representatives of the opposition drew attention to the main problem of Vilnius – increasing traffic jams. The started repair works are taking a very long time, for example, the repair of Liepkalnis Street, which was supposed to be completed by the fall of 2023, has been taking more than a year, the work on Savanorių Avenue has been going on for more than two years. It is uneconomical and expensive.

“V. Benkunskas can be praised for implementing one of the points of “Vilnius without traffic jams” – returning the green arrows to the traffic lights! However, the work, which required three weeks and cost only 800 euros, took a whole year,” said A. Zuokas.

The representatives of the opposition regretted that no positive changes had taken place in the capital of Lithuania in one year. All municipal reforms and transformations were accompanied by scandals and the inability to negotiate with either political opponents or the public. The most striking example is the process of liquidation of 12 children and youth centers, which was stopped by the opposition, and the protection of Romano Gary square on Basanavičiaus Street. The “Freedom and Justice” faction alone officially made 35 inquiries and submitted four budget proposals related to the security of Vilnius residents, which, according to the opposition, Vilnius authorities do not pay due attention to. It was proposed to allocate EUR 200,000 for the preparation of project proposals for the installation of a network of hiding places in the city of Vilnius. Unfortunately, the approval of the authorities was not received. True, the City Development Committee approved the proposal to provide 100,000. Eur for the new part of the program “Designing the evacuation roads of the city of Vilnius”, giving priority to the section of the Eišiškių road to the southern bypass of Vilnius, the section of Zaliijų ežerų street to Santariškių – Moksilininkų st. ring In the event of an emergency, these exits are vital for the citizens of Vilnius, so A. Zuokas hopes that the citizens’ safety will be more important to the rulers than political ambitions to reject everything proposed by the opposition representatives. As it happened with another very important proposal – to allocate 200,000 euros for the assessment of the technical condition of residential dormitories, taking into account housing safety and quality of life.

The representative of the mixed faction Aleksandras Nemunaitis praised the mayor for another job – to remove the iron frames from the Green Bridge.

“Many other works were accompanied by scandals. First of all, due to the fact that this Vilnius government is characterized by special audacity in controversially evaluating laws and the writings of supervisory authorities. Some documents have to be demanded through the courts, although the Local Self-Government Law of the Republic of Lithuania clearly states that the information must be provided within 5 days. However, nothing compares to the mayor’s attempt to “index” the value of the National Stadium project. I think many Vilnius residents have really questioned what the mayor represents: the interests of business or Vilnius residents,” said A. Nemunaitis.

Already today, the “Freedom and Justice” faction registered drafts of the council’s decision, which propose to start negotiations on the takeover of the company implementing the National Stadium, by organizing separate international public procurements, thus dividing the construction of the object into parts and successfully implementing it in parts.

“We are initiating the convening of an extraordinary council regarding the National Stadium. The conclusions of the Public Procurement Service clearly indicate that the amendments to the Concession Agreement adopted this year are not possible, the economic balance of the parties to the agreement was violated, and the risk of indexation was exclusively transferred to the shoulders of the municipality. A critical remark was that the indexation was also done for already completed works, although court practice prohibits this type of indexation. In response to this, we believe that the municipality was completely unrepresented when making the aforementioned changes, therefore the decision of the council, which approved the changes to the Concession Agreement, must be changed,” said Vydūnas Sadauskas, elder of the Freedom and Justice faction.