– I’m really upset. Not just as a politician, but as a southerner. It is so disrespectful, the way they override local democracy, says Ingvild Wetrhus Thorsvik. She is a politician for the Liberal Party, and sits on the justice committee in the Storting. She is one of many elected representatives who are deeply upset about what is now happening in their own hometown. One week ago, the government set fire to a debate that had actually been put to death. Then they opened up for residents in the former Søgne and Songdalen municipalities to vote for a secession from Kristiansand. The Labor Party in Kristiansand now demands that the government turn the matter around. Støre: – The decision has been made The claim was adopted in a statement on Monday night. On Tuesday evening, the Agder Labor Party, together with representatives from Kristiansand, will discuss the matter in a digital meeting with party secretary Kjersti Stenseng. – The decision was made without our knowledge, and completely against our will. It disappoints us deeply and unfortunately strengthens our experience of being a part of the country that is not prioritized by the party centrally, writes Kristiansand Ap in the statement. Read the full statement at the bottom of the case. Party secretary in the Labor Party Kjersti Stenseng, is in Bommersvik in Sweden, but will participate digitally in a meeting with local Labor politicians in Agder on Tuesday night. Photo: Lars Nehru Sand / news But everything indicates that the answer they get will disappoint. To Dagbladet, Jonas Gahr Støre says that the government’s decision will stand. – So there will be a referendum in Søgne and Songdalen? – It does, says Støre to the newspaper. Kristiansand mayor Jan Oddvar Skisland and the rest of the local team in Kristiansand Labor Party say they feel overwhelmed by their own party. Photo: Svein Sundsdal Can not answer when the Prime Minister arrives Since the government released the news a week ago, the reactions have not been long in coming. Action groups on Facebook, both for and against division, are growing with each passing day. Labor mayor Jan Oddvar Skisland has been crystal clear that the local team in Kristiansand feels overwhelmed by “their own” government. He has also demanded that the prime minister come to town to clean up. Kristiansand Mayor Jan Oddvar Skisland and Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre pictured together in 2019. Photo: Tor Erik Schrøder / NTB Støre has confirmed that he will do, but when it will happen is not yet known. On Tuesday, State Secretary Tale Benedikte Jordbakke gives the following comment to news: – We are in dialogue with Kristiansand Ap and will find time for a meeting with Støre together with them. Will fight in the Storting Ingvild Wetrhus Thorsvik calls the government’s process one of the most clumsy she has seen in her life. – It creates so much unrest and uncertainty. They force the largest city in our region to go back in time. She believes the government has deliberately undercommunicated that a dissolution can not take place without support in the Storting. Thorsvik says she will support local democracy in the Storting: – I will of course listen to the city council in Kristiansand and the decision they have made. It is completely unnatural to have to vote for something other than what the municipal council itself does here, and it is important that we listen to those who actually apply and that we take into account local democracy and the division that exists between the Storting and the municipalities. Photo: Martin Leigland / news Section five of the Subdivision Act does not allow the government to cut through a dissolution, if the municipality itself does not agree. – We have a subdivision law that regulates both merging and division of municipalities and counties. It clearly states that if a municipality has spoken out against division, the case must go to the Storting to be decided there, says Thorsvik. There she has little faith that the case will get a majority. – With the unrest that the proposal has created, not least among the politicians in Kristiansand, I think it will hold hard. Professor Jan Fridthjof Bernt is aware that matters such as this must go to the Storting. Photo: Vidar Ruud / NTB Professor emeritus Jan Fridthjof Bernt at UiB confirms that decisions on municipal division must be adopted by the Storting, if the municipality itself opposes this. He is one of Norway’s foremost experts in municipal law. – There is a decision in the municipal council in new Kristiansand where the majority expresses that they do not want to reverse the merger. When the case is now raised by residents of the two forcibly merged municipalities, the ministry must decide whether it believes there is reason to reverse the decision. If it thinks so, the matter must go to the Storting, as long as Kristiansand does not change its mind, he tells news. The statement from Kristiansand Labor Party The government must turn around! Kristiansand Labor Party is very upset about the government’s decision to initiate a study of possible division of Kristiansand municipality and subsequent referendum. We ask the government to turn around and stop the process. From the news came like lightning from clear skies last week, and until today, we see that conflict and division in especially Søgne and Songdalen again affect the population. This is of no use. We respond that we have not been given the opportunity to discuss the matter in advance with the party leadership and with the government. Discussions, information and co-determination are important principles for all changes in working life, deeply rooted in the Main Agreement. The same values form a cornerstone of the Labor Party’s ideology. The decision was made without our knowledge, and completely against our will. This disappoints us deeply and unfortunately strengthens our experience of being a part of the country that is not prioritized by the Labor Party centrally. It is our clear view that this also breaks with the Hurdal platform, which together with the party program is one of our most important working documents. The merging of Søgne, Songdalen and Kristiansand was a process that was very time-consuming and resource-intensive. Three organizations have merged into one, and there have been ongoing change processes in the municipality since the summer of 2017. This has cost. And most of the municipality’s employees have noticed this through a major restructuring with many major changes, and it seems to us that this is something the government parties have skipped in their internal discussions. There is a great deal of adjustment fatigue in the organization, and the corona pandemic occurred when the organization had been operational for two months. It is unreal to send our employees out into new years of change and uncertainty, when the time to build teams, build better services and strengthen the organization – should be now. We simply do not believe that the government has seen the scope of the consequences this decision may have. Kristiansand Labor Party is concerned about trust. Trust is crucial to the success of our constituents and the general public, and just as important is trust in our own organization. We, as shop stewards and members of a party team in a blue part of the country, depend on being able to trust our parent organization to succeed. In this case, we strongly experience that the opposite has happened. Crucial information has been withheld, and the party leadership is actively opposed to a decision made by the local party in a local case, which only concerns local matters. To our knowledge, the same thing has never happened in the party’s proud history. Loyalty must go both ways, that is what makes the Labor Party the force it is in society. We are sincerely concerned about the Labor Party’s credibility in matters concerning local self-government and local democracy. We dare to remind that democracy is under constant pressure, and that the most important security the party’s thousands of local politicians throughout the country find is the certainty that our movement shares a common definition of democracy and local self-government. The Labor Party must never put itself in a situation that divides us in the understanding of how democracy is exercised. There are good reasons to criticize the municipality and the regional reform of the bourgeois government. But the response to criticism is not always reversible. Just under 10,000 employees are affected by the reform in our municipality. Consequences of a fragmentation of professional environments and services of high professional quality are a poorer offer for everyone. But mostly to the inhabitants who are completely dependent on interdisciplinarity and high competence. Be it social science, health science or education. We are very concerned about this population group. In the municipal elections 2019, we got the mayor for the first time since 1947. The ambition has always been to keep this position. Despite the fact that our own shop stewards have been under constant attack, something the party leadership is well aware of, they have stood firm. If we are to be able to maintain our position as the municipality’s largest party, we are dependent on trust and commitment from our own government. It must show that it sees Kristiansand and Agder. Kristiansand Labor Party believes that representative democracy must be allowed to work and do its job. It is important to us that our decisions, taken in our elected bodies, are respected. We have said no to the report and referendum earlier at our own members’ meeting and through decisions in the city council. The mother party must listen to and accept this. The government must reverse its decision and show confidence that Kristiansand City Council is competent to make decisions that are in the best interests of the entire municipality.
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– The government must turn around! – news Sørlandet – Local news, TV and radio
