"St. Petersburg Times" № 960, Tuesday, April 13, 2004

Liberals Plug Reforms of Councils

By Vladimir Kovalev
STAFF WRITER


      Reforming grass-roots election procedures is the subject of discussions now under way between City Hall and the Yabloko and Union of Right Forces,, or SPS, factions of the Legislative Assembly.
      The move was seen as an attempt to placate the liberal factions after they called for the resignation of Vice Governor Viktor Lobko, whose responsibilities include administrative matters. They said he had wrecked recent municipal elections.
      The factions sought a no-confidence vote against Lobko last month, butboth sides seemed to play down the problems after the Thursday meeting.
      "We had a talk about life, about questions that we have to solve," news agency Regnum quoted Lobko as saying Thursday. "We have a [local] administration system that is far from perfect. We shouldn't destroy it entirely, but we should work to create a system that has advantages for people."
      This week deputies plan to discuss more than 171 amendments to a local law on the system of municipal administration. They are designed to give 111 local councils more responsibilities and more money.
      "We have to be law-abiding, however we will try to extend the powers of the councils in accordance with federal legislation," Lobko said. "If the vote is positive, we might be able to increase their powers even more."
St. Petersburg city and its surrounding suburbs are divided into 21 districts, each with an administrative head appointed by the governor.
      A law passed by the Legislative Assembly in December 1996 would have replaced the 21 appointed authorities with 21 elected councils. But City Hall then pushed a radical re-districting law through the assembly, slicing the city into 111 electoral subdistricts.
      Furthermore, local lawmakers loyal to then-governor Vladimir Yakovlev passed legislation emasculating the 111 councils, slashing their powers and their ability to raise revenues, but keeping the governor's appointees in charge of the 21 larger districts in place.
      At the end of March Governor Valentina Matviyenko met SPS and Yabloko deputies who tried to convince the governor to reconsider elections for district heads, and to cut the number of districts to 13.
SPS deputy Alexei Kovalyov, who participated at the meeting, said that Matviyenko had refused.
      "If people are confused with the current system of municipal councils, they would be even more lost if a two-tier system is introduced," he quoted her saying.
      Kovalyov said the governor offered a compromise - to elect 21 district councils that would be given some say over who City Hall could appoint as district heads. "This sounds fine, but it could contradict the structure of municipal government set down in federal legislation," Kovalyov said Monday in a telephone interview.
      "Our position is that we could create such a municipal system, which would be able to work, would take on more responsibility and this way we could show the population the reasons for its existence," he said. "This system could replace the current structure of district administration.
      "This would be a good reason to stop these endless [municipal] elections that only confuse voters more and more," he said.
      St. Petersburg voters elected only 30 of 63 municipal councils in March 14 elections timed to coincide with presidential elections when a higher turnout was expected. Only 18 councils have a full complement of members. In 92 city districts repeat elections are to be held in the next seven months.
      Only 437 deputies were elected of the 835 candidates who participated in the election.
"I'm hoping the municipal system will continue developing and won't have to start off from scratch again," Tatyana Dorutina, head of St. Petersburg League of Voters, said Monday in a telephone interview.
      "There are lots of problems, such as in the satellite town of Strelna where the local council is up to its neck in legal disputes," she said. "In some territories, suburban areas especially, it is already working well already, while in Moscow their municipal system has no effect at all."
      Meanwhile, according to City Hall's municipal legislation commission the bill to be discussed this week gives the new councils few responsibilities and contains a lot of amendments that are unlikely to gain deputies' support.
      Commission head Dmitry Panyushkin said the amendments less likely to pass are those giving control over real estate to municipal councils, giving the right to issue marriage permits to people aged under 16, and putting the burden of welfare benefits on residents of municipal districts.
      Municipal councils shouldn't expect a rapid increase in their budgets soon, Panyushkin said Monday.
"I am for budget increases that would be provided step-by-step," he said.
      "If it is now 1.8 percent of the city budget or a little above 2 percent when subsidies transferred by the deputies are included, it would be a good idea to make it about 8 percent."

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