How the opposition rules. ANO and SPD in Děčín: They made the zoo more expensive, wanted a loan for hundreds of millions, then fell apart – News

The victorious ANO and the second-placed SPD agreed on cooperation in Děčín shortly after the September municipal elections. Jiří Anděl (ANO) remained the mayor, and SPD MP Jaroslav Foldyna became one of the deputies.

Both movements went into the election with big promises. The SPD, on the flyers of which Tomio Okamura and Foldyna were the leaders, promised to “stop price increases”. Representatives of the movement and citizens even signed a petition “against price increases”.

Foldyna also promised free public transport for children and senior citizens in his tenet “how we will help citizens”.

“Our long-term goal is to offer free public transport to children and seniors,” he emphasized.

ANO again put up billboards before the elections with the words that “it is better under their government”.

However, both movements did not keep their pre-election promises. Already in November, the new coalition agreed to increase the entrance fee to the zoo by 30 crowns for adults and 20 crowns for children.

It was also talked about that next in line could be, for example, an increase in the price of bus fares or the fee for waste collection.

This currently amounts to 750 crowns per citizen and covers approximately half of the costs that the city spends on the disposal of municipal waste.

At the same time, Mayor Anděl realized immediately after his victory that the newly formed coalition was not going to have an easy time. “It’s not about building and investing in the city anyway, but about surviving at all,” he told iDNES in October.

Foldyna blamed the increase in prices and failure to fulfill his promise on the government of Petr Fiala (ODS).

“One of our programmatic priorities was to do everything possible to stop the price hike, and that goal remains unchanged,” Foldyna wrote on Facebook in November.

“However, since we do not have the slightest possibility to correct the incompetence and destructive fanaticism of Fial’s government from our position as a local government, we are faced with the choice of either limiting some of the city’s services, or partially transferring the price increase to the citizens, because otherwise there would be a risk of disruption of the city’s finances,” explained Foldyn, justifying the increase in prices.

At the same time, the prices of entrance fees to city buildings, public transport or the amount of the waste collection fee are fully within the competence of the council.

But that’s not all. In February, the coalition planned for the city to borrow 405 million with a ten-year loan. The representatives planned to use the money, for example, for photovoltaic power plants and wanted to repay the loan from the savings achieved.

At the same time, Mayor Anděl (ANO) wrote on Facebook before the elections that although the city was affected by some crises, “we managed to maintain financial health and create reserves for worse times”. In the end, the city will take a loan “only” up to 250 million.

After half a year of joint governance, the coalition of ANO and SPD finally fell apart. The reason was former deputy mayor Jan Skalický (previously for ANO), who was dismissed at the suggestion of Anděl.

However, representatives of the original coalition also voted for his dismissal. In the end, the deputies also supported the dismissal of other councilors.

Děčín thus elected new management in May. On Wednesday, the ANO movement, Volba pro Děčín and Our Děčín movement signed a memorandum of cooperation. Anděl remained the mayor.

When asked what Foldyna says about the collapse of the coalition and how he retroactively evaluates the fact that he failed to keep his pre-election promise to stop price increases, Novinka did not respond until the article was published.

The ANO movement and the SPD are in opposition in the House of Representatives. They criticize the government both for poor communication and for the unmanaged energy crisis or, for example, for raising prices. In a series of articles, the news looked at how they rule in cities.