The uncle and nephew work in “perfect” coordination, and therefore, after K. Mitsotakis turns off the lights in parliament, Mayor K. Bakoyannis, in turn, “darkens” the Athens city hall in the context of “saving energy”.
The mayor of Athens, Kostas Bakoyannis, during his TV interview on Thursday morning, announced that from tomorrow and every night the lights of the Athens City Hall will not be lit. At the same time, he pointed out that the energy crisis is not a reason for municipalities not to do their job and reiterated that no child attending school in Athens will catch a cold this winter.
In the context of energy saving measures, he mentioned the large-scale lighting program currently underway in Athens, replacing lamps with LEDs to save up to 60% energy, and announced that from tomorrow and every night the lights of the Athens City Hall will remain off.
It is a bad omen of a European scale, if you highlight national sights in the colors of the Ukrainian flag for a long time, then you have to turn off the backlight…
More details – excerpts from an interview with the mayor of Athens:
On the social policy of the municipality
“Since this winter, which will be difficult, we must all be together, I would like to provide useful information for our citizens.
First: social assistance for all. You can call the city hall or go to our website www.cityofathens.gr. Classes are small, there are interactive whiteboards, etc. We have wonderful teachers who are volunteers. I would like to say a huge “thank you” to these people who help us and make the Social Assistance Center a reality.
Second: we started procedures so that 3,000 children could receive school supplies: bags, pencil cases, pencils, everything they need.
Third: in our primary health clinics, we provide free examinations for children up to 16 years of age.
“We are at the stage where we need to be close to each other”Bakoyannis concluded.
About energy saving in the municipality of Athens
“We must save money and set a good example. But at the same time, our task is to ensure that the municipalities do not create an alibi for themselves, as happened in the past, that “we have a crisis and therefore we cannot do our job”.
We survived this, as you remember, we got to the point where we had no trash cans on the corners, no street lights, referring to the economic crisis.
So when we talk about electric lighting, we do the following: Now we are starting a very, very big project. This is the biggest project of the Municipality of Athens after the double redevelopment, which involves the replacement of lighting and the installation of LEDs, totaling 46,000 lights throughout the city. This way we get better lighting. […] and savings of 60%. All this is controlled automatically, so when the light bulb burns out, we will not wait for someone to call us to warn us, but we will see it on the dial and automatically go to the garage. This is a project that should have been completed decades ago. This is a project that could be given a name: “Welcome to the 21st century“.
Emergency School Funding
“We had two school councils, which we decentralized and made 14. Because we don’t want schools to be managed by a centralized system. On the contrary. We want decentralization, because we need to involve parent committees and the educational community. Therefore, the day before yesterday in the city council we adopted special funding for schools in addition to the regular contribution, and are now preparing to change the lighting inside the school buildings to LED.
At the same time, we ourselves fall into the logic of economy. This means that the air conditioner cannot work when the buildings are empty, nor can the lights be turned on. And this is symbolic, but from tomorrow we turn off the lights in the city hall on Kotsya at night. These outer lights are very good, but we have to send a message. People saved 15%. When another person saves money at home, what will we good ones do?”.
“No area will be plunged into darkness.”
Asked if there is a risk that the lights will go out in Athens in the winter or that children in schools will catch a cold, Bakoyannis replied:
“I have said this before and will continue to say this because I understand there is a lot of anxiety I get in the areas I go to. No area can ‘go into the dark’. No child at school can catch a cold. Such things are unthinkable in Athens in 2022. And then the main thing is to do your job, because where the city is today, it has needs.”
“Now we are working on the creation of 12 new playgrounds. Also playing fields. We have already started in People’s Square and finished there. We are changing, reconstructing all the fields in the city. As for laying, we have done 750 streets, and we are going to do 1100. What As for sidewalks, we now have four fronts in the city, and a number of other projects, small, medium and large, because Athens has lost too much precious time.”
Finally, when asked about crime in the city center, Bakoyannis reiterated the need to reinforce Athens with additional police forces.
It is worth recalling that almost 3,000 new police officers were recruited over the past 3 years, however, crime has almost doubled. Maybe the problem is not so much in the number of police officers, but in the effectiveness of their work?
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