Kosice - Where to go now?

Representants of three political parties did meet on Tuesday 22nd of February in "Tabacka Talk!" and discussed how to find consensus in shaping the city of Kosice. Discussion was focused on actual problems, better said on problems that need solutions, either new or those waiting longer time on the list. One of those older is the need to effectively adjust the city administration according to amount of town citizens and disponible budget. At the moment the city of Kosice is divided into 4 administration districts and 22 boroughs that is far too much for running a town of that size. Ex mayor of town Frantisek Knapik openly admits missing political courage to solve this problem during his leadership of town, new elected mayor Richard Rasi promised to work on it with results.

All parties had similar electoral programme so it is realistic that they will cooperate after election as well. Marek Vargovcak wisely argumented that problems like a alternative sources of energy, should be strictly apolitical, as those type projects take two or more electoral periods to accomplish and so they must be planned for next generations in the mind. His opinion is that the city needs new investors with higher added value, such as IT, biotechnology and Richard Rasi completed him with pharmacy and sciences. As very important step he sees arranging a contact person for investors, that will take special care through the structure of City Council, giving accent on prompt communication between town and potential investors. These signals could be appreciated. There are three universities in Kosice and new mayor wants to cooperate with all of them in order to establish conditions for highly skilled absolvents including building affordable accommodation for them. In this way, the city would gain from local brains instead of their run away. The aim is to prepare quality real application.

Hot question was of course ECC KOSICE 2013. Richard Rasi: "Big victory did meet with big uncertainty. It is necessary to adjust public opinion about ECC, it will be successful only if it will be enjoyed by majority of town citizens." Basically it looks all right. Winning position of ECC Kosice 2013 is confirmed and monitoring report from Brussels, in the end of last year is accepted as positive but this question is a bit more complex. As usually, there is problem with money. Approved 60 million EUR for ECC are in the same box with money designed for marginal communities. And this problem is not easy. Hopefully this situation will motivate responsables for more action. Money is playing the key role also in some sub projects of ECC e.g. amphitheater renovation that should at first cost 8 million EUR but with extras and extras, budget raised up to 30 million EUR. Simply, this way of planning must be changed. Despite of the status, ex mayor of Kosice Frantisek Knapik believes it is a great challenge for the city to work on amphitheater project. Richard Rasi sees the connection with strong partner as the way to go in this case.

Some interesting moments and comments from the evening discussion are reported in following video report.