A few comments from Winnie the Pooh and Piglet about the past Strategic Session, organized by social activists and the party "The Power of People".

The first. It seems to me that the authors of this idea - the creation of the Strategic Development Plan of Odessa, mixed two completely different programs.

There is such a thing as an "investment project". An investment project is being developed by an investor who wants to invest. Such a project can be and sea trams, and high-speed tram, and t. D, but the most important is the investment project of that person, or that group, or the company that has money. In some cases the city, if it has money for this, can act as a co-investor or even as an individual investor, but in this case it is also a matter of investment: the project payback, technical level and. Of course, each such investment project must be implemented on the basis of an agreement with the city authorities. But in this contract other conditions are prescribed than in the investment. There should be indicated the rights of the investor, his guarantees, requirements for the investor from the side of the city and t. Hramad (city authorities) in this project is not interested in what exactly the investor does - it's his personal problems, and what he does for the city: he carries so many people, pays such money and money to the budget. How he builds, where he builds - by and large, is his personal problem. But the city has to determine for itself what conditions it puts the investor.

Here lies the root of the problem. The overwhelming majority of topics discussed at the Strategic Session, in my opinion, had a purely "Manilov character", as the authors of the project persistently tried to act as an investor (as if they have these very investments), and not the bulk.

In my opinion, if we are talking about Odessa's development strategy, we need to talk not about investments, or about projects for the reconstruction of the city, but about the directions of work and the criteria for selecting projects. We need to talk about the reform of the procedure for making city decisions. The city is primarily a complex of socio-political tasks. The problem of infrastructure, then of urban planning, follows (I leave behind the brackets the debate about the importance of urban planning or infrastructure first, since I believe that it is impossible for Odessa to move to urban planning without solving infrastructure problems). And for investors, it is necessary to separately develop a program for attracting investments, setting priorities and benefits.

The second. I initially believe that this system of work is unproductive. I'm sure that even singing in chorus through this technique can not. First we need to create one-two-three-four working groups that will develop some preliminary projects. One, two, three, including alternative. In these working groups there should be experts who know how the situation is today, what are the problems, what solutions they see. It's not at all the fact that experts will offer something new, but they can conduct a real assessment of ideas, understanding the essence of the situation. And only after the development of such an initial project can we move on.

By the way, our "Beach Commission" - of course, above all, thanks to Sveta Popova, but acted just like this. I see that this is the only real way for the work of the public and experts.