Tomorrow, May 20, at At 10:00 a.m., an emergency meeting of the Valka county council will be held to elect a new chairman of the council, the municipality informed.
Tomorrow, May 20, at At 10:00 a.m., an emergency meeting of the Valka county council will be held to elect a new chairman of the council, the municipality informed.
The extraordinary council meeting also included the second question about the dismissal of the deputy chairperson of the municipal council of Valka region, Unda Ozoliņa (“Party of Vidzeme”, “Latvia’s development”).
On Friday, the local government received a request from deputies to call an emergency council meeting to elect a new council chairman, as the long-time head of the local government, Ventas Armandas Kraukli (“Vidzeme Party”), was suspended from his post on May 18.
In the request signed by Deputy Viesturas Zariņa (JV/LZS), it is requested to convene an emergency meeting as soon as possible for the election of the chairman of the municipal council of Valka region in order to ensure the continuity of the work of the municipality. The deputies stated in the request that the municipality has been left without leadership, as it currently does not have an executive director, while the deputy executive director is absent for an indefinite period of time, and the deputy chairman of the council is also an exempted deputy who does not perform the full-fledged functions of a deputy.
As reported, on May 18, at the extraordinary meeting of the Valka county council, six opposition MPs – Zariņš, Kristaps Sula, Guntis Albergs, Dace Baške, Agnis Birkavs, Juris Žurovičs and three independent MPs – Vesingi, Gita Avote and Jānis Anže – voted for the removal of the municipal chairman Krauklis from office. They based their decision on the loss of trust in Raven.
Last summer, several members of the municipal council of Valka region, signing a relevant application, requested the removal of the chairman of the council from his position.
At that time, in the application, council members claimed that Krauklis had committed several violations. He is said to have repeatedly violated the law “On the prevention of conflict of interest in the activities of public officials” and continued to commit violations even after receiving the administrative penalties imposed by the Office for the Prevention and Combating of Corruption. The mayor is also said to have “multiple times single-handedly taken decisions to deal with municipal property, while being in a conflict of interest and causing damage to the municipality, hid from the members of the municipal council information about issues that are within the competence of the members of the council and which only all members of the council have the right to decide together, as well as concluded a personal nature of a private transaction, the outcome of which depended on the vote of the members of the municipal council”.
At the meeting of the Valka county council, considering the request of the opposition MPs for Krauklis to resign from the position of council chairman, only six out of 15 deputies voted for his resignation.
In the 2021 elections, 1,314 voters, or 53.13% of the total number of voters, voted for the combined list of the “Vidzeme party” and “Latvijas vysvetės” represented by Kraukli. Thus, the combined list of “Vidzeme Party” and “Latvijas tävätsäei” won eight votes, but in March of this year, three deputies left the faction led by Krauklis.
