As a result of the verification of the petition with 4000 signatures for declaring a referendum against the intention to build the Ecological Economy Center (CEH) in Skalica is that the petition does not meet all requirements established by law, the final verification report was signed by 16 out of 20 members of the commission. Deputy Mayor Katarína Chovancová announced this on Thursday at a meeting of the city council, where the results of the inspection were discussed.
Chovancová clarified that the reason is the insufficient number of valid signatures, i.e. due to the non-fulfillment of the quorum established by law, the commission did not further deal with the substantive assessment of the content of the petition. A meeting with the petition committee took place on Wednesday (October 29) morning.
The members of the petition committee do not agree with the commission’s procedure. They again emphasized the insufficient participation of the members of the commission, which, according to the decision of the Ministry of Education, should have been 20. They talk about lack of transparency and lack of credibility. Some city councilors pointed out that in the draft resolution there is no further procedure, specific numbers, how many votes were valid, duplicated, how many were not found in the records.
The commission set the rules in advance, and then the petition was verified at several meetings. The data were verified in pairs of members, then the same data were checked by others. Despite the fact that the participation in the meetings of the commission was not always complete, it was heard that the final report was signed by the members who participated in the meetings. Chovancová added that each member of the commission had the legal space to observe and comment on the course of the verification, which they could use. She emphasized that the commission proceeded in accordance with the law on the right of petition.
MP Martin Koiš said that the commission showed an effort to find ways to recognize all signatures, he thinks that it should re-evaluate the results, but he emphasized that this does not necessarily mean that the quorum is fulfilled. Several residents were not found among the residents of Skalice or were eliminated. Chovancová added that even if they were included, the petition would not reach the necessary quorum.
Citizens presented the petition at the beginning of September. This is the first petition in Skalica that was supposed to lead to a referendum. The question was: “Do you agree that the city council of the city of Skalica approves changes and additions to the territorial plan of the city of Skalica, which exclude the location of the Center of Ecological Economy Skalica of the proponent GGES… in any variant submitted to the environmental impact assessment process in the territory of the city of Skalica?”
The plan, which the petition refers to, states that the facility should be able to process up to 130,000 tons of waste per year. Two variants are mentioned. The mentioned type of CEH operates in more than 500 locations in Europe.
