City Council unveils petition to cancel Odesa's charter

The Odesa City Council has published a petition on the Socially Active Citizen portal to abolish the current Odesa City Charter and create a working group to develop a new version of the document.

The petition is authored by activist Serhiy Bondarenko.

In his petition, the activist insists that the current charter contradicts, among other things, the Constitution of Ukraine, especially in terms of the development of the Ukrainian nation, its historical consciousness, traditions and culture, the state policy of decolonization, and the memory of the fighters for Ukraine's independence.

Serhiy Bondarenko insists that ideological bias and pro-Russian rhetoric The preamble of the Charter emphasizes the importance of Odesa as part of the "city of the Russian Empire" and states that "Odessans are proud of the traditions of courage and patriotism, which have their roots in the exploits of the Russian military...", which, according to the activist, is an example of imperial and Russian propaganda.

He recalled that in 2022, the Odesa City Council recognized the Charter's obsolescence, but there was no proper public participation in the development of the new document. As a result, the draft Charter, published on March 7, contained numerous legal and factual errors (we would like to point out that the developers of the new version of the Odesa City Charter forgot that Odesa is part of Ukraine), and the revised version of July 9, 2024, did not take into account a number of reasonable public proposals and in many cities did not meet the requirements of current legislation.

"This indicates either the low competence of the employees of the Odesa City Council and its executive bodies involved in the development of the new version of the Odesa City Charter or the unwillingness of the city leadership to repeal the current Odesa City Charter, which is openly pro-Russian and spreads Russian and Soviet narratives," the author of the petition emphasizes.

So far, 16 Odessans have signed the petition, and there are still 90 days left before the vote is over. The deadline for collecting signatures is October 12.

The Charter, in accordance with the laws of Ukraine, defines the city symbols, city holidays and memorable dates, honors and awards of the territorial community, the basic principles of the administrative-territorial division of the city, as well as the development of the city, the system of local self-government in Odesa and the principles of interaction between its elements, forms and procedures for direct participation of members of the territorial community, civil society institutions in the implementation of local self-government, the principles of preserving cultural heritage and promoting socio-cultural development of cities

Кирило Бойко