Revolting

Edgar Savisaar is to face a mass demonstration outside City Hall on Friday in protest at his proposed 150% hike on land tax. Which is not to say he will address them, but rather that if he happens to be there and looks out the window, he'll see a rather large crowd of people calling for his resignation.

Gunnar Stahl, the organiser of the rally, has been behind a letter-box drop urging residents of Tallinn to rise up against their mayor, albeit in a very calm and dignified way in which their displeasure is expressed through their presence and their placards - which are sure to reflect the general opinion that the plan stinks more than the city's sewers, which any revenue generated through the rate rise would be designed to improve.

Though espousing a peaceful protest, Stahl is using fighting words. "Our demonstration will go ahead as scheduled unless Savisaar scraps the plan by 13 December at the latest - and apologises to the nation on the 9 o'clock news that night for the mistakes he has made!" Here here.

Things just got a hole lot better

In a series of moves indicative of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, City Hall has announced that just about every tax and fee imaginable in the city is set to skyrocket in the new year.

The Centre Party-dominated city government (or council, whichever one it is that makes these decisions), led by their supremo, mayor Edgar Savisaar, first revealed that land tax in the city would more than double from the 1st of January. This discouraging move would be in line with their vision of having everyone relocate to the city centre from the outskirts if it weren't for the fact that they're also putting up downtown parking fees. Shooting up by as much as 50% in the Old Town, the new prices - in the rest of the city at least - have been defended by Vice Mayor Jaanus Mutli as 'still being cheaper than in Helsinki'.

This in turn could be in line with City Hall's policy on roadworks: the 2008 budget has seen spending on the city's pot-holes-and-no-gutters infrastructure slashed. Perhaps the idea is that if people are stubborn enough to live on their own property in the suburbs and still drive into the city, they will have to put up with bad roads and high parking prices when they get there.

On the other hand, if they idea is to clear the roads of cars and get people onto public transport (which will still be travelling on the terrible roads they won't be spending nearly as much money on) it seems strange that the other major announcement was that ticket prices for buses, trams and trolleybuses would also be going up (yet again) in 2008, by as much as 20%.

Never missing an opportunity to pass the buck and/or take a swipe at the government, our Jaanus explained this away as being the result of rising fuel prices and the state's decision to increase excise duties. He also added that drivers are demanding pay rises and that the city has to fund the purchase of new vehicles without any of the help that other towns and counties receive from the central government.

However, in news that would have brought sweet relief to about three people in the country, Mutli revealed that the list of people who can travel on public transport for free will be expanded from New Year's Day - to include those Estonians who were involved in the clean-up operations following the Chernobyl disaster. Won't they be sitting pretty... providing they're in good health, living in the city centre, don't own their own property and don't have a car they need to park on the street.

Impotence, poverty, broken homes, brain death

Wielding the might of moral righteousness, three paper pushers from City Hall are championing sobriety in the capital with a plan to advertise against alcohol. The fact that they are from the Centre Party - which at the state level is out in the cold in opposition to the current coalition - and that their campaign takes a direct pop at the government's inaction regarding alcohol-related problems in the country is neither here nor there.

Under the plan, reported in today's Linnaleht, off-licences will be plastered with catchy slogans such as "Alcohol destroys your brain cells!", "Alcohol makes you impotent!", "Alcohol tears families apart!" and "Alcohol is a waste of your money!" in order to steer people away from the demon drink. And if the troika behind the campaign had their way, at least a few of the half a million kroons they intend to spend would see the slogans slapped on the bottles themselves, a la the warnings on cigarette packets.

And in fact I tend to agree with their views. I would back them all the way if I wasn't convinced they were just out for political gain rather than actually concerned about the health of the populace. Nevertheless, they have a point: the prime minister and his cohorts claim that putting the price of a bottle of beer up by about 50 cents is a giant step towards the eradication of the drink problem in the country, when it is clearly nothing of the sort, and seem not to be at all concerned that alcohol is responsible for many of the issues they tell us they are otherwise 'addressing'.

In that sense, City Hall's slogans are perfectly targeted, if they are designed to have a shot at the government. They constantly bang on about knowledge-based economies, upping the birth rate, keeping families together and making more money, and our triumvirate of public servants has pointed out - quite rightly, if not altogether comprehensively - that alcohol continues to play a part in scuppering all of them.

Trams, planes and automobiles

It's been talked about for ages, but finally City Hall has come out and laid their plans on the table. Two new tramlines are being planned to run from the city centre: one to the concrete jungle of Lasnamäe, and the other - good news for travellers to Tallinn - between the city's main railway station and the airport.

It seems that the other proposed new lines and extensions (to Mustamäe and Pirita) will have to wait: these new additions alone will take up to six years to complete and cost the city as much as four billion kroons, a large chunk of which it hopes to beg, steal or borrow from the EU.

The end result is nevertheless likely to significantly ease the burden on existing public transport and make the wait more than worthwhile.

Knock the f***ing thing down

City Hall has announced plans to erect its new, er, city hall on the site of a petrol station next to the Soviet monstrosity that is Linnahall (which, confusingly, also translates as 'city hall'). But I have a better idea: why not demolish Linnahall and stick it there? All it attracts is Russian 'stars' and drunk teenagers. And develop a proper foreshore while you're at it: it's the obvious site to open the city up to the bay. Surely one of the development companies that's in bed with City Hall could make something of it?

Nothing to do with us

Consistency in governance is clearly a tenet City Hall subscribes to. After lambasting the state for taking matters into its own hands in the removal of the Bronze Soldier - the Soviet era statue of a Red Army infantryman erected in 1947 as a 'monument to the liberators of Tallinn' - from the centre of the city, it has now passed the buck on erecting a memorial to the victims of Communism as, it says, such things are matters of national importance. Clearly it has nothing to do with the fact that the party currently leading the city (Keskerakond, or the Centrists) has the local Russian-speaking population to thank, almost single-handedly, for its absolute majority.