More new projects from Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandic.
By the end of this month, heavy construction equipment will again start digging up the meadow in front of the National University Library, where the second phase of the construction of fountains, a project worth about 30 million kuna, will begin, reports Jutarnji List on September 6, 2015.
The construction of two new fountains was announced by mayor Milan Bandić in the Glas Zagreba, a new monthly magazine financed by the city administration. It is a publication for which 1.3 million kuna have been allocated in the city budget. Judging by the headlines in the first issue, its goal will be to provide free promotion to the mayor for the upcoming elections.
“I can announce the start of construction of the two fountains in the next two weeks”, said the mayor according to Glas Zagreba. He also added that in twenty days the reconstruction of Branimirova Street should be continued. The mayor expects that by then the soap opera involving property and legal issues will finally be solved.
Although the city councilmen have rejected the budget review in which one of the items was the construction of the new so-called Bandić’s fountains, saying that the mayor is throwing money away while some parts of the city do not have basic utilities, funding for some of the works has been provided by redistributing funds among various city departments.
Since the works will last into 2016, the city claims some of the required money will be provided in the next year’s budget. The construction will be carried out by Vodotehnika company with whom the contract on the second phase of the construction was signed in October 2014, twelve days before the arrest of mayor Milan Bandić and his associates. According to project architect Helena Paver Njirić, the two new fountains will be built south of the existing fountains, at an area of about fifteen thousand square meters.
The free monthly Glas Zagreba, which is available to citizens starting yesterday, has also published reports on the successful use of the EU funds by the city authorities, as well as on the free textbooks which the city bought for its students. Although the editorial suggests that the magazine will be the voice of the citizens of Zagreb, of 32 pages in total, only a half of one page has been devoted to the questions of actual citizens.
