The Day has repeatedly written about the situation around Stus Public Garden at the intersection of Peremohy and Palladina Avenues in Sviatoshynsky district of the capital. Let us recall that five local activists, having launched the drive to establish the public garden, are now fighting municipal authorities’ reluctance to clean up the area and return it to the public. Kyiv City Council passed the Resolution No. 13/3451 “On Bestowing Vasyl Stus’s Name on Public Garden” in 2010, ordering the Kyiv City State Administration (KCSA), as the city’s executive body, to implement aforementioned resolution through organizational and legal measures. The Day has repeatedly sent requests for information to the KCSA’s head Oleksandr Popov, asking him to comment on the situation. We have never received any response. However, Popov, when visiting this paper’s editorial office two years ago, said: “The decision on Stus Public Garden is an example of erroneous, if not criminal, actions by councilors which went contrary to the community’s interest.” He then added: “I want this issue to be reconsidered as soon as possible…” The state bailiff issued a decree fining the KCSA in October 2012, but the administration never complied with the decree nor paid the 1,360-hryvnia fine.
Meanwhile, the District Administrative Court of Kyiv cleared the KCSA of failure to act by its ruling No. 826/4057/13-a from April 25, 2013, relying on the “March 18, 2013 letter from the representative of the debtor [KCSA. – Ed.] reporting that the court order has been, in fact, implemented and providing a copy of the Kyiv City Council’s executive (the KCSA)’s order No. 274 issued on March 5, 2013.” The ruling, which we have obtained, is also calling for the enforcement proceedings to cease “since the court order has been, in fact, implemented”(!). At very least, this is amazing, since the Sviatoshynsky activists insist that the KCSA’s legal representative himself admitted in court that no public garden had been established. The authorities have not determined which entity will have the garden on its books and have not had it added to the relevant register of natural objects as an independent item, to say nothing of providing the budget funding needed for its design documentation and maintenance.
Olha Pshenychna, a member of the original activist team, has filed a complaint with the Kyiv Administrative Court of Appeals. There is no set date for the trial yet.
