Can taxpayers afford exorbitant funding for Pope John II memorial park in Lviv?

March18200814:36

Lviv lawmakers allocated Hr 1.1 million to develop the Pope John Memorial park in Lviv - in line with Mayor Sadovyj election campaign promises, mayoral office representative Oleh Bereziuk says. -Last year, Hr 600,000 was earmarked to develop and maintain the park. Despite this impressive funding, the park includes 13 young trees (an allusion to the number of apostles?) with a path covered with sand mixed with glistening industrial waste from the Iskra bulb plant and running between two rows of trees.

In total, Sadovyj’s program allocates Hr 2.957 mn for development and maintenance of all Lviv parks and street green zones. Of this, Hr 1.8 mn will go to maintain trees and lawns in the city. If we subtract this amount from the total, we will get a miserable sum of Hr 58,000 for two scores of other Lviv parks.

Interestingly, how will the Pope John II Memorial park look after Hr 1.1 mn has been funneled into it? Most probably, the city authorities have something up their sleeve and Lviv residents will wake up one day to be stunned by glamorous illumination or some smashing gimmicks installed in it.

In a surprise move, Sadovyj administration earmarked a mere Hr 1.2 mn for modernization of Lviv roads. The money will pay, they say, to complete the repair of roads and tram tracks on Mechnykov and Horodotska streets. However, even a greenhorn economist can see that the money is not enough to implement these projects.

Incidentally, when the city draft budget was discussed, head of land use commission Vira Lyaskovska demanded to increase funding for parks, saying the Hr 3 mn figure was too miserable.

The Hr 1.8 mn does not tally with Mayor Sadovyj’s original promise to allocate Hr 5 mn for the development and maintenance of parks.

Similarly, Major Sadovyj has not delivered on his promise to lighten all Lviv parks by the fall of 2007. The lighting in pitch-dark parks is definitely inadequate and leaves much to be desired.

The Japanese garden promised by Mayor Sadovyj to the Japanese ambassador last year is history. In this context, all the nice words by the mayor uttered in the presence of the ambassador about how important it is for Lviv to have a Japanese garden is just empty talk.

Obviously, our mayor is an example of a wise politician and hard-saving economist. All said, who will explain why the papal park will cost so dearly to the city taxpayers?