Weekly Update 09

October 19, 2024

Hello everyone. Happy Sukkot and Shabbat Shalom,

I apologize in advance that these emails are a bit long. This isn’t a Facebook post, which by nature is short and to the point. Rather, it’s an in-depth newsletter aimed at helping you understand exactly what’s happening in our community through the council’s actions.

Your investment in reading this is important because many people in the community need to understand what is happening, and I take this opportunity to thank you for your time.

Neither the council plenary nor the opposition runs the community; the plenary is a body that approves policies and budgets and, above all, serves as a counterbalance to the head of the local authority, who holds broad powers. The management of the community is the responsibility of the head of the council. Even a council head who does not have a majority in the council plenary continues to manage the community and can carry out almost any action without interference, especially since all department heads report to him. The council has several positions mandated by law—legal advisor, treasurer, municipal engineer, and council auditor—who are gatekeepers who are supposed to act in the residents’ best interests but in practice work closely with the council head, who can influence them if he so desires. And Abutbul is highly influential—he has the air of a commander.

So what is the opposition’s role?

To ensure that the council head manages the community in accordance with proper governance, without violating the law. And that means constantly ensuring that the problems, legal violations, budget deficits, and harm to residents that occurred during Abutbul’s previous terms—do not happen again. To that end, I have studied and know that history in great detail; I have read every audit report and spoken with people. This is so that I know what to do as a council member to help prevent that history from repeating itself, because patterns repeat themselves and people, unfortunately, do not change.

My powers are limited, as are those of all council members. This is a volunteer position, and I depend on the information the council administration provides me. As I mentioned in previous newsletters, many of my requests for information have gone unanswered to this day. And some were answered only after six months of struggle by the entire opposition.

A key tool in my work and a way to oversee the processes are the council meetings—once a month, the council chair and the council administration ask us to approve a series of items—mostly extraordinary budgets—and then they must answer questions. Finally, they can’t ignore the emails—they have to speak, and everything is broadcast live on the council’s YouTube channel. A recording remains for anyone who wants to watch it later.

Therefore, this newsletter will describe our working process and what actually happened at the council meeting (unfortunately)

Up to 10 days before each council meeting, council members receive the meeting agenda by mail and email, including any budget requests (non-budgetary items can be submitted up to 48 hours before the meeting), which leaves little time to prepare. The materials provided are supposed to include information on what will be discussed at that meeting and the relevant documents explaining the request.

Our party’s work for the community: We sought your trust together with 13 fellow members, and all of us participate in the discussions, the deliberations, and the action. We immediately forward all the materials we receive to every member of our party, most of whom have been with us for 7 years. This is the place to thank them for their tremendous contribution; without them, I would not have remained a council member for a single day. And these are the wonderful people who continue to contribute to the community: Ziv Deshe, Yoram Yaniv, Yitzhak Segev, Dadi Homesh, Galit Sena-Luria, Tzipi Hadar, Osnat Tal, Irit Bloch, and Hagai Mazursky.

Ziv’s contribution to our work is immense—he is a vast repository of knowledge about the community, its people, regulations, and the mayor’s circulars. Ziv has retired from the council but not from the party, and he devotes many hours to the community. Thanks to him, our party has achieved significant successes in overseeing proper administration. I will elaborate on this later.

Before every council meeting, we hold a lengthy party meeting where we discuss every item on the agenda and decide what questions to ask and how to vote based on the answers provided. In many cases, we find that the materials and information provided are sufficient, and we can support the requests based on the information we’ve received. Before the party meeting, I make a point of going out into the field to every location where a budget is requested to see firsthand what is being done and what is truly needed, because the gap between what we are asked to approve and what is actually happening on the ground is often significant.

For example, at the last meeting, we were asked to approve an extraordinary budget increase to complete final construction work in the Moradot HaBeer neighborhood (which stretches between the Halomot and Neve Sharett neighborhoods). An increase of 2.8 million NIS was requested, covering the completion of sidewalk paving, lighting, underground trash bins, landscaping infrastructure, and more. You’ll agree with me that we cannot approve such sums without visiting the site to see what has been done and whether the detailed work is truly necessary. On this tour, I was accompanied by Avigayil and Ilan from our party, as well as two council members from New Contract—Natanel and Dudi.

At council meetings, in addition to council members and the council administration, the relevant director whose department handles the agenda item in question also attends. At the last meeting, it was Council Architect Ruth Barens who presented several items requiring our approval (congratulations on her success in the role she began in early September). In her presentation and as background to her remarks, she explained that these projects involve drainage, road paving, and the completion of final works in the Moradot HaBeer neighborhood.

If you watch the recording of the council meeting, you’ll see that throughout the entire session, the only two council members who frequently ask questions and request information from the presenter before a decision is made are Avigayil and me. And this pattern repeats in other meetings. Attached is a link to the recording.

Our party, which champions good governance, asks questions and delves into the details during the meeting. Above all, we are not willing to rely on verbal assurances from the legal advisor or the treasurer—especially when they fail to respond to our previous emails in which we posed clarifying questions and/or requested information that we are legally entitled to receive. I am proud to report that thanks to our questions during the meeting, very important information is coming to light, and I will give just one example from the last meeting:

Regarding the budget increase for the Moradot HaBeer neighborhood. Feel free to watch at the 22-minute mark—it was only thanks to our party’s preparatory work, the site visit before the meeting, and my questions that it became clear the budget source for some of the requested projects may not be legal, meaning this budget source cannot be used for those specific projects. In response to my question, the legal advisor admitted that this is the first time they are taking money for neighborhood development from the Road and Sidewalk Development Fund.

Only after the Legal Advisor explicitly stated that this was the first time and that the matter required approval from the Ministry of the Interior did we vote in favor of increasing the budget reserve. We have no desire to delay projects that benefit residents. However, we do want this to be done in a proper and transparent manner. We have already experienced misuse of development funds in the past, about a decade ago during previous terms of Abutbul, so I did not rely solely on the Legal Advisor’s words but immediately sent letters to the Ministry of the Interior to determine whether this move is indeed legal. Attached is the letter sent to the Ministry of the Interior.

On the same day, I received a response from the Ministry of the Interior:

“The special budget allocations approved by the local authority’s council plenary session are submitted to the Ministry of the Interior for approval. The Ministry reviews each allocation on its own merits, including its budgetary source, and decides whether to approve or reject it in accordance with the Ministry’s procedures. If the special budget is approved by the Ministry of the Interior, it means that it complies with the relevant procedures and circulars issued by the Director General.
We thank you for your inquiry.”

This is precisely an example of the work of a council member and of my personal work. The Ministry of the Interior, which is required to approve every extraordinary budget (special budget) voted on and approved by the council plenary, will pay attention to this matter and, prior to its final approval, will review all the data and information I have submitted to it. Unfortunately, in previous terms about a decade ago, there were financial irregularities—sometimes bordering on illegality—that were approved by the Ministry of the Interior or carried out without its approval. Why? How? I don’t know. I hope that this time, when a council member contacts them, they will indeed take care to review the matter.

Just as we did regarding the request to increase the budget for renovating the Nili School (I wrote about this in Newsletter 2). Budget requests submitted to the plenary session without the necessary clarifications, including requests for an additional budget of 1.5 million NIS without specifying the components of the requested expenditure. Immediately following that meeting, we contacted the Ministry of the Interior requesting that they review the requests submitted by the council administration, as they were unsupported by documentation and lacked the required details. I would like to remind you that the requests for significant additional funding for the project were approved by the council members, with only me opposing them. As of now, the Ministry of the Interior has not approved the requests and is reviewing the matter in light of the referral submitted to it. I believe we have saved the community a great deal of money and certainly upheld proper governance. And so we will continue.

Yours,

Limor Zar Gutman

The “Lema’an HaMoshava” Party