At the end of the six meetings between elected officials and the population, Mayor Laurence Baldit draws lessons and outlines the next months of her mandate.
What is your assessment of the neighborhood meetings?
It’s a satisfaction, because the residents are always there, quite numerous. The meetings were generally peaceful. We were able to take stock of the requests from previous meetings, generally honored by the technical services.
New ones have been taken into account, some are already implemented. What remains is this collective observation of this problem of incivility, which causes a strange climate: road incivility, parking, waste management… I am asked for surveillance cameras, but that is not municipal policy. The first response is to restore dialogue between us all, so that we can relearn how to live in a city, how to live together.
Acts of citizenship are all of us, in our daily practice, who must set an example.
Where are the city’s various systems and projects?
In Small Towns of Tomorrow, we are always accompanied by Emma Jauvert, project manager, who helps us a lot in developing projects and allowed us to set up the rental permit. It has been in effect since April, on a perimeter defined by the Territorial Revitalization Operation.
We see that, overall, owners play the game. It is a tool to fight against slumlords. For Bourg-Centre Occitanie, the signing of the contract is imminent. We have prioritized projects over time, and the Region will tell us which ones can be supported. We remain consistent on the question of housing, major projects to requalify neighborhoods, and commerce too. The major projects are Pisa, the greenway on Avenue Nelson-Mandela, and the demolition of the building which overlooks the courtyard of the media library, to make it a friendly, green space, perhaps a place of shows. There is also a skatepark project at the Charles-de-Gaulle space and the renovation of the old civil status room in Champclauson.
How does the next budget look?
It’s going to be complicated. We have already heard announcements from the government. Obviously, allocations for local authorities will be impacted.
It’s going to be a real problem for our projects, and we risk having choices to make. In any case, we are already thinking about finding resources. There will be no reduction in expenditure concerning the well-being of the population and support for schools.
The government would be well advised to seek resources where they can be found, rather than always reducing public spending.
