Meeting mayoral candidates in raum AU

We could say this activity is not a real project but worth of this post, as it happened passively. Two of the four candidates contacted us and asked if we could find time to meet and talk.

We retain it an important moment, as we were, now since almost 10 years working constructively within our community and this was the first time, we have been acknowledged as a force within our community. At this point we had not finalized the papers with our city administration regarding the “to be subsidized” spaces, we still were renting to market value prices. None of us had paid any rent to this point and a new mayor could have meant also a break in the promise of the reigning mayor, to set things in a way, that the entire building would be dedicated to activities of non-profit organizations and that it would have been done retro-active.

It can probably be understood, why we were in a way quite nervous and potentially worried.

At the same time, we were happy about the impulse and we did immediately contact the third and fourth candidate, inviting them as well, not to give wrong signals to our fellow-voters.
In the end, we met with three candidates in two days, as we did not insist on mayor Andrej Čas’ visit, as we were regularly in dialogue the last year and he and his ideas were not strange to us.
We did appreciate all three talks, where we were able to gain insights of the candidates view of the work of non-governmental organizations in general and about his idea of relation we should develop with the local administration.

These meetings represented a first moment, where non-profit and non-governmental organizations stepped together and presented themselves as one block, as one force. It signed the beginning of an integrational process within the NGO sector of Slovenj Gradec.