Odesa City Council Attendance Drops to 35 Deputies in 2022 Report

Experts analyzed the discipline of attendance at meetings of sessions and standing committees of the Odesa City Council deputies during the second year of their term of office (from November 2021 to November 2022).

This is reported bythe "Certification of Local Council Deputies".

In 2022,local self-government , like all other spheres of Ukrainian life, faced serious challenges and tests of strength. The presence of local councillors in their towns and cities together with their constituents during the war demonstrates much more than just fulfillment of duty. In the first terrible months, it was also about the unity of all local authorities, about support and interaction with citizens, and about the fact that we are all together. But time passes, the powers of Odesa deputies are not limited, and the city itself is not a war zone. Local self-government can and should fully function, and the deputies should return to fulfilling their duties as defined by law. Therefore, the first and obvious criterion for analyzing the state of local authorities is the presence of deputies at their workplaces during meetings of sessions and standing committees.

The overall rate of deputies ' attendance at meetings of sessions and commissions during the second year of their mandate decreased for various reasons, including the following: some went abroad for personal reasons, some disappeared from the public space altogether, and a small group of deputies are serving in the Armed Forces.

Session attendance

During the second year of its mandate, the Odesa City Council met for 6 sessions: from December 2021 to November 2022. There were 3 meetings before the full-scale military invasion on February 24, and the same number of meetings after.

The last extraordinary session before the outbreak of hostilities was held on February 15, 2022, and considered the formation and support of the TRO. But the first session during the war had to wait until June 29. It is worth reminding that this session was the first (and so far the last) time that a hybrid format was used: some MPs were present in the hall, others online.

According to the voting results published on the council's official website, only 35 deputies attended at least 5 out of 6 meetings.

Of these, 21 deputies attended 100% of the meetings: Oksana Antonishak, Oleh Bryndak, Lyudmyla Varavva, Oleh Etnarovych, Vasyl Ieremiia, Andriy Kislovskyi, Iryna Kutsenko, Maryna Lozenko, Olha Makohoniuk, Levon Nikoghosyan, Svitlana Osaulenko, and Serhiy Strashnyi, Dmytro Tantsiura (Trust the Deeds faction), Oleksiy Asaulenko, Daria Rybak (Servant of the People faction), Oleksandr Avdeev, Oleksandr Baiderin, Olena Vododyuk, Ihor Koval, Roman Senyk, Serhiy Shmatko (unaffiliated).

Another 14 MPs attended one less meeting (or 83%): Anastasia Bolshedvorova, Andriy Vagapov, Oleh Zvyagin, Zhanna Mandrychenko, Svitlana Popova, Eduard Stas (European Solidarity faction), Serhiy Danyliuk, Vadym Morokhovsky, Oleh Filimonov (Servant of the People faction), Oleksandr Matveev, Tetiana Plaksiy (Trust the Deeds faction), Oleksiy Yeremitsa, Mykhailo Karpenchuk, Lilia Leonidova (non-factional).

Eleven MPs attended 4 out of 6 (or 67%) meetings: Iryna Holovatyuk-Yuzefpolska, Oleksandr Ivanitskyi, Andriy Ternovskyi, Oleksandr Sheremet, Yuriy Schumacher (Trust the Deeds faction), Natalia Zhukova, Olha Kvasnytska, Olena Korobkova (Servant of the People faction), Petro Obukhov, Oleksiy Potapskyi (European Solidarity faction).

Exactly half of the meetings (50%) were attended by 7 MPs: Nikita Avdeev, Oleksandr Edelman, Vitaliy Sautenkov (unaffiliated), Olena Zeffner, Ilya Freiman (Shariy's Party), Oleksandra Kovalchuk (Servant of the People), Vadym Tereshchuk (European Solidarity).

Less than half of the meetings of the sessions were attended by 8 MPs. Ihor Batrakov, Bohdan Hihanov, Ivan Demchenko, Serhiy Uzunov (non-factional), Volodymyr Ivanov, Ivan Semchuk (Shariy's Party faction) attended 33% of the sessions. Only one meeting (or 17%) was attended by two MPs by February 24: Viktor Naumchak (European Solidarity faction) and Dina Yatsenko (unaffiliated).

It should be noted that Ihor Batrakov and Serhiy Uzunov are in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and for objective reasons do not attend meetings of the council's working bodies.

Viktor Baranskyi did not attend a single meeting during his second year in office.

According to the results of monitoring during the first year of his term, the discipline of attendance was better then: 54 deputies attended more than 90% of the meetings, and 8 deputies attended 70-80% of the meetings. Only one MP, Viktor Baransky, attended half of the sessions, while one MP, Oleksandra Kovalchuk (Servant of the People faction), attended 40% of the sessions.

Attendance of the standing committees

The analysis of attendance at the meetings of permanent commissions was based on the minutes provided by Odesa city council in response to a request for access to public information. The attendance of deputies at commission meetings was monitored during the second year of the council's mandate from November 2021 to November 2022.

As of February 2023, there are 12 permanent commissions in Odesa city council. Two of them are not functioning due to the fact that they have only two deputies each (a minimum of 3 members is required for commissions to function). The Commission on Culture and Tourism has not held a single meeting since the beginning of the council's powers. The Commission on Rules of Procedure and Deputy Ethics, which Svitlana Popova resigned from, has not been able to hold meetings since September 2022.

During the second year of its mandate, the Commission on Budget and Finance held the largest number of meetings - 24. The Commission on Land Management met 14 times, and the Commission on Housing and Communal Services - 8 times. The commissions on municipal property and on development planning held 6 meetings each, 5 meetings each on education, 4 meetings each on transport and on healthcare. The fewest meetings were held in the commissions on regulations (3) and on social policy (2).

The Commission on Ecology did not hold any meetings during the second year of its mandate. Its chairman was replaced: Mykhailo Karpenchuk took over from Bohdan Hihanov. Given that the commission includes members of the Shariy Party faction and the former OPFL faction, holding meetings seems problematic.

If we analyze the meetings by month, we can see that the standing committees of the city council almost never held meetings from March to September 2022. The only exceptions are the commissions on education, housing and communal property, which met at least once during this period. The only permanent commission that almost never stopped its activities during the winter-spring of 2022 was the Commission on Budget and Finance.

It is also worth paying attention to the meetings held in October-November 2022 on the eve of the final city council session of the year, where the budget for the next year was adopted.

According to Odesa city council and minutes of meetings of permanent commissions published on the city website, some commissions did not meet before the session to preview the agenda. In October and November, six commissions did not meet. The commissions on culture and tourism and on regulations could not meet, and the commission on ecology did not hold any meetings at all. Three more - on municipal property, on development planning and on social policy - obviously had to hold meetings before the "budget session". However, the absence of published minutes of meetings on the council website and in the council office rather demonstrates not the absence of meetings, but rather certain "shortcomings" in the preparation of minutes of these commissions' meetings.

As for personal attendance of permanent commission meetings by deputies, the average percentage of deputies' attendance at 'workplaces' has not changed significantly compared to the previous year.

It is worth reminding that the monitoring of deputies' attendance at commission meetings was carried out based on the publicly available minutes provided by Odesa city council in response to a request for access to public information.

All 100% of the meetings were attended by 22 deputies: Oksana Antonishak, Oleh Etnarovych, Oleksandr Ivanitskyi, Iryna Kutsenko, Levon Nikoghosyan, Svitlana Osaulenko, Tetiana Plaksii, Serhii Strashnyi (Trust the Deeds faction), Anastasiia Bolshedvorova, Andrii Vahapov, Oleh Zvyahin, and Petro Obukhov, Eduard Stas (European Solidarity faction), Olha Kvasnytska, Olena Korobkova, Daria Rybak (Servant of the People faction), Oleksandr Avdeev, Oleksandr Baiderin, Volodymyr Kornienko, Liliia Leonidova, Roman Senyk, Serhiy Shmatko (unaffiliated).

Between 60 and 96% of the committee meetings were attended by 16 MPs: Oleh Bryndak, Liudmyla Varavva, Vasyl Ieremiia, Maryna Lozenko, Olha Makohoniuk, Dmytro Tantsiura, Oleksandr Sheremet (Trust the Deeds faction), Zhanna Mandrychenko, Svitlana Popova, and Oleksii Potapskyi, Vadym Tereshchuk (European Solidarity faction), Oleksiy Asaulenko, Serhiy Danyliuk, Natalia Zhukova, Oleksandra Kovalchuk (Servant of the People faction), Olena Vododyuk, Vitaliy Sautenkov (unaffiliated), Olena Zeffner (Shariy's Party faction).

Three MPs attended half of the meetings (50%): Nikita Avdeev (non-factional), Oleksandr Matveev, and Yuriy Shumacher (Trust the Deeds faction).

Four MPs attended less than 50% of the meetings. Vadym Morokhovskyi (Servant of the People faction) attended 42% of the meetings, Oleksandr Edelman (unaffiliated) and Viktor Naumchak (European Solidarity faction) attended 25%, and Andriy Ternovskyi (Trust the Deeds faction) attended only 21% of the meetings of his commission.

Two deputies did not attend a single meeting of the standing committee during the second year of the council's mandate: Andrii Kislovskyi (Trust the Deeds faction) and Dina Yatsenko (unaffiliated).

The percentage of efficiency of 7 deputies in the committees was not analyzed because their committees did not hold meetings: Ihor Batrakov, Bohdan Hihanov, Iryna Holovatyuk-Yuzephpolska, Mykhailo Karpenchuk, Ivan Semchuk, Oleh Filimonov, and Ilya Freiman.

Deputies Viktor Baranskyi, Ivan Demchenko, Oleksii Yeremytsia, Serhii Uzunov (non-factional) and Volodymyr Ivanov (Shariy Party faction) are not members of any permanent commission of Odesa City Council. The council secretary Ihor Koval is not an ex officio member of any commission.

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