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Marina Nikolova

Large cuts in the municipal radio, public lighting, placing containers for recycling, promise to restore the historic center of the capital and a proposal for the registration of immigrants announced the mayor of Athens George Kaminis at his first press conference.

In the economic crisis the budget of the municipality was also decreased this year from 890 million euros until now to 818 million euros for 2011, which means that the municipality will try to accumulate finances through European programs and new policy. In this respect the mayor Kaminis, who took over the leadership of Athens two months ago prepared a report on the work done since the beginning of the year and on the new projects and needs of the city.

One of the big steps that the mayor dared to make is the dismissal of 83 people from the municipal radio station 9.84. The report until present is that there were 484 people working, including 260 journalists, and the expenses of the radio station annually were at the amount of 9 million euro, while the radio revenues reached only 400 000 euro. Indicative are also the rates for the audience, which do not exceed 1%, and last year the radio has received a subsidy from the State amounting to 15.5 million euros.

The mayor decided to act and said that this year the radio will receive a subsidy of 5 million euroand also fired 20 people with full-time contracts and 63 people with temporary contracts. Regarding the criteria for the dismissal of specific employees Kaminis announced that they considered the results of their work, the economic situation of the radio and marital status or health condition of all employees, so as to make sure that nobody will remain on the street without a job. The mayor noted that with the dismissal of 83 employees annually they will save 800,000 euros from the salaries of the staff, 1.3 million euros from the salaries of employees on temporary contracts and another 1,5 million after negotiations on the reduction of the salaries for the other employees.

After the reforms in the staff of the radio and the payroll of the employees this year will be saved 10 million euros for the municipality of Athens that the mayor is committed to invest in opening new kindergartens and salaries of their staff. Meanwhile, the municipal radio station will have a new program in September and it is expected that 9.84 will be the radio, to deal with events in the city and its problems and provide a stage for young talents, scientists and people with visions, so as to increase its audience and then take on the role that it deserves.

One of the items of expenditure to date where quite large amounts of money were flowing out, appears it was intended for gifts. Mobile phones were distributed for the amount 562 euros each, buttons on cuffs, TV sets, laptops and other gadgets, but this year the amount of money for gifts will decrease to 182,000 euros. Kaminis cut also the expenses for public relations of the city hall by 50%. The Mayor of Athens said that after many years, during which the management was transferred between the two parties in Greece for the first time the government of the municipality is in the hands of a "colorful" coalition, which will change the philosophy of government that ruled ever since.

The conditions in which the mayor must implement his program are determined by the plan for a reform in the public administration Kalikratis, the different manner for drawing up the budget in this regard, but also by the economic crisis. Utmost importance he gives to the cleanliness of the city the public lighting and parking spaces. Also the Mayor seeks through reforms to make the services of the municipal offices more efficient, easily accessible and useful to citizens.

In connection with what has been done for the past two months the Mayor of Athens said that the police have drawn 116,000 tickets for illegal parking, which is 60% more than all the tickets drawn up for 2010, and 70% of the tickets issued for these two months are related to parking of cars in places that trouble the movement of pedestrians on sidewalks or in places that make the movement of the disabled impossible. In turn this has increased the parking of cars by 20% in places where parking is controlled.

George Kaminis noted that in connection with the traffic in the city as priorities for the municipality of Athens in the first place are pedestrians, then cyclists, public transport, motorcycles and finally cars. Therefore the pedestrian areas of the central shopping street Ermou, on Dionisiou Aeropagitou and Apostolos Pavlos, which are close by the Acropolis will be controlled by moving platforms, which will be placed by the police. In order for the capital to be an attractive and clean city, but also to reduce the cost of the City Hall on dumping grounds are placed new containers for recycling paper and glass. Kaminis noted that the amount that the municipality must pay for the dumping ground will be much smaller with the decrease in the volume of garbage, so it is in the benefit of the municipality and residents of the city to recycle. His promise is to increase the number of containers for recycling or the so called blue bins and from 4000 by the end of the year to become 8000.

The need to revive the life in the historic center of Athens and reverse the process of decline of the capital, was also discussed at the conference. Through new playgrounds and kindergartens, as well as through potential social benefits in the form of rental payments, so as to give incentives to young couples to settle in the city center.

One of the items of revenue in the treasury of the municipality are municipal taxes. But in recent years, many stores have stopped their activities and have closed down, which means that a part of the revenue has declined. To encourage traders, but also to return to life the center, the municipality proposed for the newly opened shops not to be subject to municipal taxes or to reduce them for some period of time.

Recently one of the problems of the city is related to the great number of newcomer immigrants who have no papers. The mayor proposed to speed up the procedure for examining applications for asylum as well as to register all illegal immigrants without this meaning that they will have the right to claim to remain for long in the state. About the 300 immigrants, who are carrying out a hunger strike for more than a month and many of them are now hospitalized with irreversible for their health damage to the body, the Mayor of Athens said he spoke with the directors of five hospitals in the capital, where they are accommodated and they have notified him that the condition of patients is completely under control. Kaminis said that in the municipality they have already received several proposals from NGOs and today he had to meet with the Union for Human Rights, whose proposal has attracted his attention. The solution must be lie on pure logic, without placing the lives of the strikers in danger, said the mayor.