Sienkevych about the possibility of holding offline sessions of the City Council: «When the rockets will hit after the siren»

Session of the Mykolaiv City Council. Archive photo NikVesti

The mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Sienkevych, said that the city council will start holding face-to-face sessions when Russian rockets start flying over the city after the announcement of an air alert.

He said this during a press conference on November 20, NikVesti writes.

It should be noted that since the beginning of the full-scale war, the Mykolaiv City Council has not held a single session in an offline format. Starting from February 24, meetings are held exclusively in zoom conferences.

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According to the mayor, today the security situation does not yet allow city council members to meet offline. He gave the example of the Russian attack on Mykolaiv in the evening of November 16, when an air alert was announced after a missile strike.

«I studied in Aspen (Aspen Institute, — note) with the director of McDonald's in Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and I asked her when a McDonald's would be opened in Mykolaiv. She replied: «When you have a missile coming in some time after the siren.» Every time a rocket flies towards us, and only then the siren goes off, I remember her words and think when we will go to the session. For example, the last such time was in the evening, first the flight arrived, and then the siren sounded, - said Oleksandr Sienkevych.

Earlier, in August 2023, NikVesti spoke with the heads of the parliamentary factions to find out whether they support the city council's transition to a face-to-face format. According to the leaders of the factions, this will not change the quality of the deputies' work. In particular, this opinion was supported by Artem Illiuk, Hanna Remennikova and Fedir Panchenko.

In turn, the head of the «Servant of the People» faction in the Mykolaiv City Council, Tetiana Dombrovska, emphasized the importance of the transition of the City Council's work to face-to-face mode.

It should be noted that the sessions are mostly held online and in the regional council. The head of the Mykolaiv RMA Vitalii Kim said that the deputy corps of the regional council will start working face-to-face only when security measures are finally approved and a place with shelter is provided.

At the same time, Vitalii Kim gave an example of the bravery of Ochakiv, who suffers from Russian shelling almost every day, noting that even in such conditions, all city council sessions there are held offline.

Recently, the deputy mayor of Ochakiv, Oleksii Vaskov, said that during the entire time of the full-scale invasion, the deputy corps of the Ochakiv city council held only face-to-face sessions. Deputies gathered even in bomb shelters.