A new land scandal is brewing in Kyiv: the Mormon Church wants to develop a public garden in the capital. The property in question is a hectare of green space at the corner of Tatarska and Hlybochytska Streets in the Shevchenkivskyi district.
The Kyiv City Council had previously leased this land for the construction of a Mormon temple. However, since this green space had been neglected for many years and the tenant had failed to fulfill the lease terms, Svyatoslav Kutnyak, a deputy representing the neighborhood, submitted a draft resolution to the Kyiv City Council session to terminate the lease with the Mormons.
The Kyiv City Council supported this initiative and created a park there. However, it never got off the ground. Roman Marchenko, a Kyiv City Council member from Samopomich, began to put a spoke in the wheel. He registered his draft resolution to overturn the Kyiv City Council's decision to create the park and return the land to the Mormons. Read also: Maisel and Strannikov pledged to deprive Kyiv residents of the Teremki bus station.
Yesterday, during the Kyiv City Council session, I had the opportunity to speak with Serhiy Gusovsky, the head of the Samopomich faction in the Kyiv City Council. In response to my arguments that his colleague was acting improperly, Gusovsky responded that Deputy Marchenko is a lawyer and acts exclusively within the law, and therefore the faction fully supports him.
Gusovsky pretended not to be aware of the obvious fact that Deputy Marchenko is openly lobbying in the Kyiv City Council to support the Mormon Church's desire to develop the park. I had to remind him that Marchenko had authored only one draft resolution—the one repealing the decision to create this park.
Roman Marchenko actively pushed this decision through the necessary Kyiv City Council committees, attending them arm in arm with Volodymyr Loboda, head of the Mormon Church in Ukraine. And at the committees, his project was actively supported by Samopomich deputies.
Serhiy Gusovskyi was forced to acknowledge a conflict of interest, with Deputy Marchenko authoring the Kyiv City Council resolution on returning land to the Mormons, and his law firm representing the Mormons in court. The head of the Kyiv "Samopomich" party promised to raise the issue at a faction meeting next Monday and possibly remove Roman Marchenko from the discussion of the park.
In general, the Samopomich position—"I know nothing, I've seen nothing"—is a favorite tactic of the Kyiv branch of Andriy Sadovyi's party (read more: Lviv Mayor Sadovyi—an aspiring oligarch from Samopomich ). For example, Arseniy Gerasimov, the Mormons' representative in court and an employee of MP Marchenko's law firm, Ilyashev & Partners, pretends not to know his employer, Roman Marchenko, KyivVlast reports.
In my opinion, the Mormons, whose property worldwide is valued at over $11 billion, have effectively motivated Kyiv's Samopomich party, which is now lobbying for the construction of their temple in central Kyiv on the site of the park. The funniest thing is that Samopomich deputies, led by Sergei Gusovsky, once voted for the creation of this park and saw no violations there.
I've learned from reliable sources that this issue, which could hurt the ratings of not only the Kyiv-based Samopomich party, is being discussed by the party's top leadership. Because in addition to the damage to the party's ratings, it also directly affects the party's leader, Andriy Sadovyi, the mayor of Lviv.
Let me explain. If Samopomich's actions in this matter make it impossible for the Kyiv City Council to unilaterally terminate leases with unscrupulous tenants, that would set a precedent. And Andriy Sadovyi, who likely also uses similar practices with unscrupulous tenants in Lviv, would find himself in a very awkward position.
It's unlikely that Samopomich's leadership is prepared to set a dangerous precedent and effectively give the party the power to influence unscrupulous land users throughout Ukraine. Therefore, we can only hope that we are dealing with the business interests of a single individual and the simple ignorance of Sergei Gusovsky on this issue.
On the topic: Lviv Mayor Sadovyi is a budding oligarch from Samopomich
Vladimir Tishchenko, social activist
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