Vanadzor is Slowly Being Abandoned, Says Council Member

There is still a crisis in management in Vanadzor. Gor Badayan, a member of the Vanadzor 'Mamikon Aslanyan' alliance, stated this in an interview with NEWS.am, discussing the current situation in the Vanadzor municipality.

“We still don’t have a decision; we are waiting for the court's ruling. The Appellate Administrative Court has decided not to accept the ‘Enlightened Armenia’ faction's lawsuit. We are waiting for the 5-day period to end to see if we convene a session or not,” he said.

The council member noted that the merged municipality of Vanadzor currently has no leader, and the council cannot gather meetings, thus the community management is not being carried out in any way. “The community can neither forecast a budget nor make any expenditures; they can’t do anything at all. Unfortunately, Vanadzor is suffering from all this; our city is slowly being abandoned. We are receiving numerous complaints from citizens regarding garbage collection, winter maintenance, and if this situation continues, the problems will deepen, because our municipality has been enlarged and three neighboring communities have joined Vanadzor, where there are also significant issues. I believe that the election of a leader for the Vanadzor community should be resolved as soon as possible, as the third largest city should not be subjected to collapse,” he said.

Badayan expressed hope that by January 19, justice would prevail and the precautionary measure against Mamikon Aslanyan would be changed. He noted that if the Enlightened Armenia party does not appeal to the Court of Cassation on Monday, they will be able to convene a council meeting.

Additionally, it was noted that the Enlightened Armenia party has not yet decided whether or not to appeal to the Court of Cassation. It is important to mention that the inaugural meeting of the newly elected Vanadzor council, originally scheduled for December 24 of last year, did not take place as the court imposed precautionary measures based on the lawsuit of the ‘Enlightened Armenia’ party, prohibiting the Vanadzor council from convening a meeting during this period to elect a mayor.