Hello! Hope you had a good summer! We are now shifting into election mode, as the municipal and county elections -25 approaches.
Fill up your calendar with green dates: See our meetings and events for the autumn here.
City published it’s 81 suggestions for budget balancing. Back in June: With the votes of the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) and the Finns Party (PS), the city executive board decided to propose balancing the budget by cutting up to 8.5 million euros (over two years). Raising taxes was rejected as an alternative. In our view, these up to 81 proposed cuts do not seem fair or acceptable at all. The Greens are going to present their own alternative.
The budget cuts would mean, for example: cutting funding for learning materials, closing the Sääksi camp center, ending the visual arts school and basic art education, shutting down the music institute, reducing the operations and opening hours of the library and museum, cutting school hours to the national minimum, closing the Noppo daycare center, ending private road subsidies, cutting financial support for sports clubs, and reducing the maintenance of sports facilities.
The Greens do not accept such massive cuts, as they would, for example, mean the end of almost all cultural activities and -education in our city. During the autumn, the city council will discuss the budget balancing program. It is expected that the negotiations will be tough.
In other news… The city has also reintroduced the Sonninmäki zoning plan for public display. We, the Greens, submitted a new statement, proposing that the entire area should be zoned as a local recreational area, without the planned new road. We do not yet know when the Sonninmäki plan will be discussed by the city council. The deadline for submitting statements on the plan is at the end of the month.
We are looking candidates for municipal, and county elections – Are you interested in taking part in local level politics for a greener city?
Citizens from other EU countries, or Iceland or Norway, can vote and become candidate in local level elections (Kuntavaalit /Municipality elections). You need to be/ of turn 18 years at latest on a election day – and you’ll have to had assigned Hyvinkää as your municipality of residence two months prior the elections.
Please note, that working as representative or board member in city positions require proficient or developing skills in Finnish language.
Citizens from outside EU/EEA countries can also vote and become candidate. But the minimum required continuous residency in Finland is two years prior the election.
Same practices apply to the county elections, which are held simultaneously with the next municipal elections.
Read more about municipal elections, or county elections.