Weekly Update 44

July 11, 2025

Hello, everyone.

This week’s newsletter will cover two topics:

• The story of the renovation of the kiosk in Gan Tiul, which previously faced Herzl Street and is known as “Nuri’s Kiosk,” named after its late operator, Moshe Ozer. The story begins with a nice idea from the mayor, but as is his way, he is once again withholding essential information—actions that do not comply with the Planning and Building Law—which led to my investigations and exposés. It is not easy for me to be a courageous and objective opposition in the face of a sick organizational culture that we knew from the previous terms of Council Head Abutbul and which has returned in full force. Unfortunately.
• Congratulations to the director of the council’s Youth Department, Chovav Weiss. Thank you for the summer party series for youth at Meisadim 100. How wonderful that Meisadim 100 hasn’t become just another piece of real estate for developers but continues to serve as a hub for cultural activity that began during Ziv Deshe’s term, when he oversaw the renovation of the site.

 

First issue: The culture of lawbreaking and lack of proper administration continues. This time—the renovation of the kiosk in Gan Tiul, known as “Nuri’s Kiosk.”

The project being carried out is important and forms part of preserving local history and community, but at the same time, the council, as an administrative authority, is obligated to operate in accordance with the law. And when information is withheld, questions go unanswered, only partial answers are given, and attempts are even made to prevent a public archive from providing me with information that is accessible to everyone—then it seems they have something to hide—that is my assumption based on their conduct.

Especially when the council head instructs the professional staff and states it aloud at a plenary session that they should not respond to me and that I have nothing to send emails about!!! They respond to others but not to me because of my behavior/activities (apparently the carrot-and-stick method).

Below are the timelines and sequence of events that raise many troubling questions.

1. At the plenary session on February 4, 2025 – a budget (special budget) for the renovation of Nuri’s kiosk was brought before the plenary for approval. Our party member, Dr. Avigal Dolev, asks several professional and fundamental questions regarding the building permit for the structure, etc. The council head’s answers are vague and evasive, as noted in the meeting minutes.
2. On March 3, 2025, after reviewing the minutes again and conducting several additional checks on the Regional Committee’s website, my confusion only grew; therefore, I did what is expected of an elected official: I contacted the council engineer with questions regarding the permit and permitted uses, preservation of the structure, ownership, etc. However, there is a boycott against me, as the council head stated, so I received no response.
3. I submitted an inquiry on 4/23/2025—the council chairman is required by law to respond to such inquiries. Therefore, at the June plenary session, the council chairman responded. However, the council chairman’s answers are terse, “hiding a little and revealing a lot,” and once again fail to disclose critical information regarding the questions asked.

See below what the council chairman replied to a simple question: Does the kiosk have a permit?

His answer: “No permit is needed; the structure dates from the late 1940s.”

But I went and checked the Planning and Building Committee’s records, and surprise—the 1940 maps don’t show any structure in Gan Tiul!!!!

1. Another lie in his response to the inquiry: He said no permit is needed. But in reality, what the council head didn’t bother to reveal at the meeting is that, following my insistence, the council has already begun the process of regularizing the structure and issuing a permit.  In other words, in June they lied/misled in an official response claiming no building permit was needed, while the council had submitted a request for a permit via an expedited procedure to the committee at the end of May!!!!!

Here, too, my investigation exposed the lie: I contacted the Regional Planning and Building Committee with questions and a request for documents. There, I found a document showing that during the month of May, a few days before the council meeting where he answered my inquiry—”No permit is required“— The Engineering Department or someone on its behalf submitted a request to the Regional Committee to arrange a permit. So why continue to lie and claim that no permit is needed?

Perhaps to avoid admitting that we were right from the very first meeting when the issue came up, and we never stopped asking—where is the permit?

For those unfamiliar with business licensing, I’ll explain: if you want to open a café there, the business must obtain a business license—and there can be no business license if the café is located in a building without a permit. None of us would want to sit in a business located in a building without a permit, and therefore without a business license.

I am glad that my handling of the matter led the council to understand that it, too, cannot violate planning and building laws, and that the building must have a permit. Otherwise, it will not be possible to open a café there.  

I am attaching the inquiry and the council head’s response, highlighted in green:

5. The matter is not yet resolved—the building requiring a permit is also a building designated for preservation (as the council head also stated, the building is listed in Section 12/C of the Building Preservation Regulations). By law, every building designated for preservation must have a documentation file. The council itself enforces this requirement on every developer or owner of a building designated for preservation. And, of course, it is also bound by this requirement. The council head responded to my inquiry that the building is indeed on the list of buildings designated for preservation. So where is its documentation file?

I asked the Regional Planning and Construction Committee, which replied matter-of-factly: “We don’t have a documentation file; look in the community archive.”

I didn’t give up and also contacted the community archive, a public archive managed so well that anyone can request scanned documents or view them on-site.

At first, I received a positive response; they explained which documents related to the kiosk were in the archive and promised they would be scanned and sent to me the next morning. I waited two days—and nothing. I returned and politely followed up with a reminder: “Where are the documents you promised me?”

I received a response that stunned me for several long minutes, which turned to anger:

“To receive the documents, I must contact the council chairman,” the archive representative replied.

Yes, the council head now controls the public archive as well, and he will decide who gets the material and who doesn’t.

Why do I have to contact and ask the council chairman?? Every person has the right to receive documents from a public archive.

In response to this undemocratic act of suppression, I wrote a strongly worded letter to the secretary, legal advisor, and council auditor, stating:

I request that you act urgently to ensure that all relevant materials are transferred to me as the archive director indicated—whether intentionally or by having the documents photographed so that I or someone on my behalf can come to collect them.

It is unclear to me how a request for information from the archive—regardless of the reason for requesting the historical material—is forwarded to the council chair, whether the request comes from a resident or a council member. Is there such a directive for the archive? Is the council chair withholding information from the public by controlling the public archive?

This illegal seizure of the information in the archive and its withholding from me continues the pattern of harassment and illegal harm against me as a council member. The systematic failure to respond to my emails and the refusal to provide information to which I am legally entitled—all of which have been going on for a year now!—are preventing me from performing my duties as a council member.

You, as gatekeepers—the secretary, legal advisor, and council auditor—have been witnesses to this illegal behavior for months—and are doing nothing to stop it.

And this week a new low was reached—I am being prevented from accessing archival material that is open to the general public. This is not about receiving information or documents from council departments; it concerns information accessible in the archive that is available to anyone, and some of it is even publicly available.

 

Apparently, they too realized that the Council Chairman had gone too far, and a few hours later I received some of the material I had requested. 

I am waiting for additional material that has not yet been sent to me, as it is claimed that it was transferred from the archives to the Engineering Department. But this, too, is archival material that every person has the right to receive.

 

Since the building known as “Nuri’s Kiosk” is up for tender, there are still two issues that need to be addressed:

1. Is the land parcel on which the structure stands (approx. 12 sq. m.) rezoned from its existing designation as public open space to a designation for a public building and use as a kiosk/snack bar? After all, it is unthinkable that any of us would erect a structure on public open space and turn it into a kiosk.
2. What has become of the documentation file required for every building designated for preservation, and does it even exist?—something that every citizen is obligated to provide, and the council is all the more obligated to ensure.
3. I will continue to monitor the situation and keep you updated, because whoever wins the tender may end up with a mountain of unresolved problems. And that is what I want to prevent—that the council act in accordance with the law, that the winner receive the property legally, and that we, the residents, sit in a park or at a café that has a permit and business license. It’s that simple.

 

Second topic: Thank you and best of luck to the new Youth Department Director, Hovav Weiss

Hovav, who previously served as director of the Drug, Alcohol, and Violence Prevention Unit in our local council, ran for and won the position of director of the municipal Youth Department. Hovav took office a few weeks ago, just before summer break, and in a short time managed to create and organize a diverse program of activities for the youth.

An important new initiative is a youth party organized by age group—to be held at 100 HaMeyasdim (the old Ya’avetz School). Yes, at 100 HaMeyasdim, the very building that Council Head Abutbul said was slated for demolition and not for use.

 I have addressed this in the past, and it is unclear why he said this and what the council head’s interest is (or perhaps it is clear?), but the main point is that the Meisadim 100 building, which was renovated and upgraded during the previous term, will now also host the youth. Thank you and good luck, Hovav, and have a fun summer to our young men and women.

I remind you that the 100 Founders building hosts the community workshop, the Hila Project of the Ministry of Education’s SHAR Division, activities by the Moad community, and more. There is also room to move activities for senior citizens there. It will take years before the multipurpose building for senior citizens is constructed. Therefore, we must start using Ya’abetz for their benefit immediately. We need to complete the elevator (there is a budget, and it needs to be updated due to price increases), and the building will be able to serve seniors for recreational activities and even provide a solution for seniors who are currently forced to travel nearly an hour to Pardes Hanna to receive services at a day center for the elderly. Why?