Odesa City Council to Discuss 85 Draft Decisions in Upcoming April Session

A regular session of the Odesa City Council of the VIII convocation is scheduled for April 16, 2025.

The city website has published 85 draft decisions. According to Article 15 of the Law of Ukraine "On Access to Public Information," draft legal acts and decisions of local self-government bodies developed by the relevant administrators are published by them no later than 10 working days before the date of their consideration for adoption.

That is, if the session is scheduled for April 16, the draft decisions should have been made publicly available no later than April 2. But on April 2, only 67 out of 85 draft decisions were published.

It is also noteworthy that out of 33 meetings of the standing committees, 18 took place after April 2, and two more meetings - the Commission on Spatial Development, Land Management and Regulation of Land Relations and the Commission on Planning, Budget and Finance - were scheduled for the day of the plenary session less than an hour before the event.

Screenshot of the screen

The Standing Committees on Culture, Tourism and International Relations and on Rules of Procedure, Deputy Ethics and Prevention of Corruption did not hold meetings during the intersessional period. It should be noted that the Commission on Rules of Procedure, Deputy Ethics and Prevention of Corruption currently has only its chairperson, Olha Kvasnytska.

The commissions on spatial development, land management and regulation of land relations and on planning, budget and finance held the largest number of meetings - six each, with one more meeting scheduled for the day of the plenary session.

The longest meeting was held on April 4. The Commission on Spatial Development, Land Management and Regulation of Land Relations worked for over 6 hours.

The shortest meeting was held by the Commission on Communal Property, Economic, Investment, State Regulatory Policy and Entrepreneurship, with the deputies working for 2 minutes. Colleagues from the Commission on Emergency Situations and Elimination of Their Consequences, Ecology and Digital Transformation worked for about 3 minutes on April 15.

Most meetings were held on April 8 and 15 - four each.

Regarding the organization of the work of the commissions, we note that some commissions raise questions about transparency. Indeed, the meetings can be streamed, but not the full agenda is published on the MPs' portal.

For example, the Commission on Spatial Development, Land Management and Regulation of Land Relations constantly publishes an agenda consisting of general items. In reality, deputies vote on specific items that are not listed on the agenda.

The published agenda of the March 7 meeting had 14 items, only 4 items on the agenda had specific addresses, and during the meeting, the deputies only voted positively to bring them to the session:

• permits for citizens to develop land management projects - 24 addresses;
• granting ownership (lease) of land plots to citizens in Odesa - 10 addresses.

For a number of other addresses, the deputies did not make a positive decision, postponed consideration, or instructed the Department of Land Resources to finalize the draft decision.

As a result, voters are forced to take information by ear, which is difficult to do in real time, and meeting minutes are published with a long delay or not at all.

As a reminder, Intent has been broadcasting the meetings of the commissions online, where you can find the agenda of each meeting and read about the most interesting decisions that were made.

On April 16, Intent will broadcast the plenary session online and report on the events in real time.

Ігор Льов