Pilot Project
“BULGARIA, THIS IS ME AS WELL”
Coordinator: “We, the people of Bulgaria” Foundation
Suggested Partners:
Local bodies:
Municipality of Varna
Regional Directorate of Internal Affairs – Varna
Political parties:
The municipal main offices of the political parties sitting in Parliament
Municipal companies:
Road Signalization – Varna
Road Constructions – Varna
Maintenance of the Roads – Varna
Engstroy – Varna
City Transport Company
Non-governmental organizations:
Club of Bulgarians in Hamburg
Civil Union “Green Varna”
Civil Union For New Bulgaria
Civil Union “Right of Choice”
Club Debates
Club of Veterans
Education Institutions:
University of Economics – Varna
Technical University – Varna
Free University – Varna
First Language Secondary School – Varna
Building Technical School – Varna
Vocational School of Economics – Varna
Media:
Pozvanete Newspaper
Narodno Delo Newspaper
Reklama Newspaper
Radio Bravo
Radio FM Plus
Radio-TV Center – Varna
Television Center – Varna
Cable Television Center – Gunchev
Businesses, to which we will apply for operative cooperation:
Festival and Congress Center
Rositsa Hotel
Odesa Hotel
Shops Chain “Piccadilly”
Shop “Mr. Bricolage”
Shop “Praktiker”
Restaurants Chain “Happy”
Restaurants Chain “Pastaria”
Communication Agency Patchwork
Advertisement Agency Krivitski
Advertisement Agency Eurocity
Eco-park “Druzhba”
Important! The project is open for participation of any concerned party that is not referred herein. .
Goal: To involve the citizens in the government of Varna and to increase the quality of the public product
Legal ground:
Constitution of Republic of Bulgaria
Art.. 1, Par. 2. The whole state power emanates from people. It is performed by the people at first hand and through the bodies stipulated in this Constitution.
Subject of the project: Lobbyism before Municipal Council – Varna for change in the municipal regulations and legislative documents on municipal level. Carrying out Civil Control over the public product production.
Description: Experts Contact Group composed of representatives of the university circles, media, business spheres, non-governmental sector and individual citizens, is going to make a survey and elaborate proposals on changes of the municipal regulations and other legislative documents accepted and valid on municipal level and is going to put forward these changes in the Municipal Council. Each month a Jury consisting of citizens is going to evaluate the work of the municipal administration and to rate according to the six-grade system the quality of the public product produced by it. The control over public order observance shall be assigned to citizens, and payment for their work shall be formed directly from income from penalties imposed to the order disturbers.
Priorities:
- Undertaking of safety measures for children: increased control of the school districts, establishment of traffic lights devices, pedestrian passages, traffic signs for speed limitations, increased control for non-sale of alcohol, cigarettes, drugs.
- Establishment and maintenance of the municipal infrastructure.
- Regulation of the traffic and signalization on the roads of the municipality; proposals for putting of signs; marking of pedestrian passages; marking of road lines; changing the length of the light signals.
- Cleaning the municipality area.
- Application and observance of the permission regime of construction of municipal and private terrains on the territory of the municipality.
- Protection of the environment.
- Protection of peace at night.
- Adaptation of the educational approaches to the contemporary requirements; rendering support to schools and other educational institutions in order to increase the quality of the children’s culture.
- Control over the esthetical exterior of all trade sites situated on the territory of the municipality.
- Control over the maintenance of the monuments on the territory of the municipality.
- Control over the maintenance of the territories declared as national parks, Sea Garden, water parks, etc.
- Increased control over the maintenance of the infrastructure related to the drainage of the rainwaters.
- Increased control over the decisions related to the fortification works in the landslide processes zone.
- Organization and control over the observance of the regulations and requirements to all owners of properties on the territory of the municipality, including private, for esthetic exterior of the property, as well as of the public areas in the immediate proximity that form the external area of the relevant site.
- Control over the rehabilitation of pavements and other public surfaces, damaged while laying communications by investors; observance of the regulations on disposal of construction waste to the places designated for this, as well as control over the decisions on determination of areas for disposal of construction waste.
- Control over the decisions on detachment of parking places, underground public garages, permissions on durable use of parts of streets for parking of company cars; control over the permissions on placing parts of trade points over sidewalks.
Practices and tools for carrying out the project:
Municipal Observers:
An agreement is going to be reached with the Municipality, to admit Municipal Observers – Varna citizens’ representatives to work on all levels and departments in the work of Varna Municipality. This access shall be given for a period of three months. The Observers shall enjoy a statute that will give them access to any information available for the Municipality membership taking decisions on the relevant levels, as well as access to all meetings, discussions and workshops having regard to the problem observed. The same access shall be provided to the municipal companies that are assigned with the implementation of the relevant municipal policies. Each of them shall have a detached work place in the relevant department and shall have operative telephone communication provided. After the three-month surveillance period the above-indicated Observers shall elaborate a report and recommendations.
An Experts Contact Group composed of representatives of the university circles, media, business spheres, non-governmental sector and individual citizens, is going to consider the report mentioned above.
On the basis of this report the Experts Contact Group shall prepare proposals on changes of the municipal regulations and other legislative documents accepted and valid on municipal level.
A political Contact Group composed of representatives of the Experts Contact Group and representatives of the political parties sitting in the Parliament, shall introduce these changes before the Municipal Council.
Controllers. Citizens able to work – voluntaries who have finished their main carrier shall be trained by the Foundation “We, the people of Bulgaria”, together with the police, the public order bodies and the bodies of the municipal administration, and shall be allocated according to the above-indicated priorities to control the observance of the characteristic legislative documents. They shall be provided with relevant powers to draw up acts and to issue other penal instruments on the place of the violation ascertained. Their remuneration shall be formed from the income realized upon payment of these fines. The media shall make the publicity acquainted with this program and shall prepare the commercial and the other entities in terms of this, what kind of documents they must have available for an eventual inspection. Besides the effect of order and elimination of the illusion on impunity, this program shall provide opportunity for many able-bodied citizens to feel useful. In the same time it will create circumstances, according to which the remuneration of those who keep an eye on the order to be formed directly from those who break/disturb the order.
The control performed according to this program will cover, without limitation to the following: violations upon parking of motor vehicles over pavements and on other places forbidden for this purpose, determined after advices with the Municipality and Traffic Police; enclosing of parking places on the streets by companies who pretend that these are “their” places; placing commercial points, tables and chairs on the pavements; non-maintenance of cleanness around any commercial point; non-collecting of waste from the companies responsible for cleaning; non-maintenance of the micro-environment around any commercial point or private property in esthetic appearance; disposal of daily or construction waste on forbidden places; non-maintenance of the front elevation of residential buildings and their common parts in esthetic appearance; non-restoring any pavements, gardens and other public parts broken/damaged by investors upon laying communications. The controllers shall not be encouraged to contact personally with the violators. After ascertainment of the violation, the controllers shall issue a relevant penal instrument (official sticker) and shall register the violation in the relevant municipal service by presenting circumstantial information on the latter and shall report the violation to the Secretary of the Experts Contact Group as well. They shall stay in personal contact with the service in the Municipality that is responsible for the execution of the sanctions determined for the violation and shall personally keep track in the Municipality on whether the fine has been collected. Their remuneration shall be a direct result of the latter. The legislation of this process and the deduction of this income in favor of the controlling citizens shall be subject of changes proposed for voting by the Municipal Council.
Mediators
During the implementation of this project the media will be acquainted with any activity, impression, analysis, result of study, find, conflict point found, etc., occurred in the public area.
Besides, this project will use as a tool also the form of one-hour TV broadcast realized one time in month, which will represent a public debate on a certain topic between representatives of the Experts Contact Group on the one hand and the Municipal Administration on the other hand. Audience in the studio will be 50 citizens. At the end of the debate, jury of 8 of this audience will give rating according to the six-grade system for the quality of work completed by the Municipality according to the relevant problem. The debates to the topics, for which rate of 3 and 2 was given to the Municipality shall be repeated every three months. In case of two consecutive rates 3 or 2, the Experts Contact Group shall refer a warning to the Mayor of Varna Municipality for durable decreased quality of the public product produced by the Municipality. In case of three consecutive 3 or 2 rates for one and the same problem, the Experts Contact Group shall address a final warning to the Mayor of the Municipality, stating that on a following rate of 3 or 2 for this public problem his resignation will be requested. These regulations give an opportunity to register, control and eventually improve within 9 months a topical public problem.
This TV debate will be a separate project that will be realized on the basis of a commercial contract between the relevant local TV channel and Foundation “We, the people of Bulgaria”. All revenues from advertisements formed in favor of the Foundation will be transferred for payment of remunerations for the time worked by the Municipal Observers, as well as for covering administrative and other inherent costs.
“We, the people of Bulgaria” Foundation is a non-governmental organization for equal rights. It does not discriminate gender, age, ethnic, religious and political appurtenance.
Contact details: office Varna
Tel.: 052 32 26 18
Mobile phone: 0899 31 53 54
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