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From: "bodi" (bodhi@volja.net)
Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 02:02:10 +0200

request for help from Trnovo Park Civil Initiative (Ljubljana, Slovenia)

Please help!

This year, in Slovenia, we are celebrating the year of Joseph Plecnik, our greatest archect (the Hradcani castle in Prague, etc). Next year, our country will take the presidency of EU and our capital, Ljubljana, will be Europe's capital for a short time.

Ljubljana is proud to be a member of CIVITAS, a group of envoronment friendly cities and slovene environmental laws are contemporary. In the seventies, a road was built, Tivolska cesta, passing around the centre of the city. In 2003, a preliminary study for a city rail was done , which predicted a 50% decline of pollutants.

But last september, one month before leaving the office, the mayor signed a contract with a building company to build a road right through a green area by a river, considered by the architect Plecnik to be an important part of the green-park component of the city, connecting river Ljubljanica with the ancient Roman wall. It is located in an old city area, Trnovo, which is connected with at least four great personalities: the mentioned architect Plecnik, the writer Fran Finžgar, the painter Rihard Jakopic and our greatest poet, France Prešeren, who fell in love for life in the local church.

Yet the road's first neighbourhoods are: a school playground, a primary school, a kindergarten and a home for elderly people!

This road is leading right into the centre of the city!

The road in itself is unnecessary. The road connection from the south ring to the Tivolska cesta is existent, the crossroad would need modernization though. But his new road would simply lead traffic from the ring directly to the centre of Ljubljana.

A few months before the contract was signed, a civil initiative sent a sugestion for a park to be made there, but the answer of the local community bureaucracy was, that until the elections, nothing will happen and that it would be best to discuss it with the new mayor after the elections. But the new mayor sticks to this unecological monster-road. Since then, the "Civil initiative for the Trnovo park, revivement of the river Gradašcica and Ljubljana city rail" has tried many times to talk to the City but in vain, for there was a new law made not long ago, which allows any roads to be built without any ecological documentation, if they are under 10 km long. And with this article, the City bureaucracy surpasses all of the environmental laws as unvalid. The second point they make, is that the papers have been already signed.

The road is not made yet, but a giant bridge is already built. They brought down three 60 year old very healthy trees, signed in the files as natural treasure without even asking the environmental institution for an opinion.

Beacuse we know they wont un-build the bridge, we suggest a concert stage combined with a restaurant there to be made, for instance, instead of the road. And the river has to be revitalized and not straightjacketed in concrete.

But they won't listen to us. Even though many architects, urbanists, environmentalists and local people agree that the road is unhealthy, and several newspapers published our story, the bureaucracy ignores us and the investor - the city builds on and the start of the next phase of the city rail project was moved to 2015, instead of finishing the whole project in 2012, as it is possible!

We are filing a complaint, we have informed the inspectors (for their papers have holes) and we are suing the investor (the City) for building an unhealthy object, but it is very probable that the paperwork will last exactly too long and the road will be then build. Actually, they are planning to cover it with asphalt in August/September!

Our only hope is that the foreign media will report this, the more, the better, for this is the only thing our politicians respect. They dont respect local papers, but they do respect foreign ones.

So our request to you is: please, try to publish this story and forward it as soon as possible and as much as possible and please send us back the links, so we can show them to our reporters and by so doing we can finally influence our establishment.

Please hurry!

http://tramvaj.neo.to/  (in Slovene)

Meško Bogdan, from the Trnovo Park Civil Initiative

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From: "bodi" (bodhi@volja.net)
Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 16:10:11 +0200

hello again,

Our lawyer said we filed a complaint, but probably without necessary effect. But before going to the court, we need an expert, to make an analsys and estimation, how much damage the road would mean to the children, to nature, to the city quarter and to the city itself, or at least for one of these components. The problem we have, namely, is that here in Slovenia, no expert is willing to do such an expertise, because the road lobby is so strong, they all fear some kind revenge: not to have much work to do after this.

So our lawyer advised us to find an expert out of Slovenia, someone who wont be distracted by the road-lobby agenda and will be qualified to make such analysis and pollution estimation. This would be our only chance to influence the courts, to make the decission fast enough, so that we can still save the park. otherwise, the court would most probably take too much time. That means we need a respected expert, as soon as possible, for our last chance for the court's positive decision is October. By November 26, the road would be finished.

It would be best if an expert could come right now and make the expertise by September. The expert can be accomodated right here in Ljubljana. In the beginning of September, we will have a news conference, hopefully with the anaysis

can you help us?

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