Plzeň: The proposal for a referendum on the construction of a giant building has three flaws

Plzeň - The proposal for a referendum on the construction of a giant building in the center of Plzeň has three flaws according to the city hall. City representatives did not specify them, only stating that one of them is the lack of signatures. They will announce how many are missing on Friday. The city will provide the referendum proposers with a multi-page document explaining the issues on Friday, Roman Matoušek from the city hall said to reporters today.
     Activists told ČTK today that they would eliminate all the flaws by Monday when they plan to resubmit the proposal for the local referendum to the city hall. According to information from ČTK, hundreds of signatures are still needed, and they are already collecting them throughout Plzeň.
     The third chance to submit a proposal for a popular vote on the construction of a shopping center will not be available according to Matoušek.
     The activists are opposing the CORSO Americká project costing 2.5 billion CZK, which includes shops, offices, apartments, and leisure spaces, that the Czech company Amádeus wants to build on the site of the demolished cultural center. On August 6, they submitted 14,768 signatures to the city hall, which was supposedly 1,300 more than the legally required minimum for holding a referendum, that is over ten percent of the city's voters.
     "We do not intend to address the substantive aspects of the proposal or its flaws at the press conference. On Friday, we will personally deliver a notification to the proposers. It will be a multi-page document specifying each error so that everything is potentially reviewable by a court," Matoušek said. He added that he already knows how many signatures are missing, but he will not reveal that today. The proposers will have a minimum of seven days to correct the flaws, but the city will give them up to 14 days, "to avoid potential disputes."
     City hall secretary Dagmar Škubalová rejected the opinions of civic associations, the initiators of the referendum, that the city hall is delaying the process so that it cannot coincide with the regional elections on October 12 and 13, as proposed by the activists. According to their representative Martin Marek, that would reduce costs to one-fifth, roughly 1.2 million CZK, and would also ensure the necessary legal participation of at least 35 percent of voters. "We are making tremendous efforts to meet all limits in accordance with the law," Škubalová stated and pointed out the massive amount of work involved in the verification.
     Škubalová declined to speculate on whether the councilors would manage to discuss the referendum deadline at the next meeting on September 6. "I do not want to anticipate when all the flaws can be resolved," she said. After the proposers resubmit, likely on Monday, the city hall will again have 15 days for review. Matoušek could not say how long the verification of hundreds of substitute signatures would take the city.
     The signatures are flawed because some signatories signed more than once, listed addresses outside of Plzeň, or provided false information. According to Matoušek, these individuals could face fines of up to 3,000 CZK in administrative proceedings. The activists were aware of some of the faulty signatures, but they could not legally strike them out themselves from the more than 1,100 sheets. Similarly, they could not remove the name of a member of the eight-member preparatory committee, who recently moved out of Plzeň, which could be the second flaw in the proposal according to Marek. All flaws are correctable by Monday, he added.
     "Since yesterday, when it became known that hundreds of signatures were stricken, we have received a level of support that we have not had throughout the entire time of collecting them (since last October). Dozens of new volunteers are signing up who will collect signatures until the end of this week," Marek added. His colleague from the preparatory committee, Petr Vaněk, stated that the city hall is operating at the edge of the law by extending the deadline for the delivery of the notification to remove flaws from Tuesday to Friday.