Council report | “Shut up” – A shudder went through the Helsinki council hall when a rough grunt was heard from the podium

City|Council report

“Chub Closed!”

This extraordinary call was heard on Wednesday at the Helsinki City Council.

Puhujanpöntä had a representative of basic Finns Mikko Pauniowho had started to list the figures he had received from the city about which language groups are overrepresented among the recipients of supplementary income support in Helsinki.

First, Paunio said, referring to the figures provided by his computer, that Arabic speakers have a 37 times greater risk of being covered by supplementary income support compared to Swedish speakers.

Then Somali, Kurdish and Farsi were on the list. At that point, there was an interruption from the left side of the hall.

“How much do the mentally ill have? What about people with developmental disabilities?”, shouted Ilkka Taipale (sd).

Then Paunio grunted, without taking his eyes off his computer:

“Shut up!”

There was a shudder in the council chamber.

At the time of the event the meeting was chaired by the council’s first vice-chairman, the coalition Harry Bogomoloff. Bogomoloff can be considered a kind of “grand old man” of the council. He has been a member of the city council since 1985 and has been a member of the council’s chairmanship since 2005.

Bogomoloff hit the table with his mallet several times and reached out to Paunio.

“For the first time in my career, I am giving you a note about the need to use factual language. It would also be appropriate to apologize to representative Taipale.”

Paunio apologized and continued to the end of his speech. In the end, he repeated his apology, adding that it is not appropriate to interrupt others’ speech.

It was the kind of behavior that could not be ignored, Bogomoloff says on the phone on Thursday. He doesn’t remember hearing that kind of language even when he was sitting in the council row in the hall.

But times have changed, and so, according to Bogomoloff, has the spirit of the council.

“If you make a direct leap from 1985 to yesterday, there is a huge difference. Then the average age of the council was higher and the council was led Harri Holkeriwhich maintained the council’s dignity,” says Bogomoloff.

The change has not only taken place in the way the councilors appear in the hall.

According to Bogomoloff, for the past five years, government policy has also been discussed exceptionally much in council discussions.

Also on wednesday, the heated discussion quickly drifted to the side of the kingdom’s politics.

The group initiative of basic Finns was discussed, which dealt with Helsinki’s attraction and holding power.

Last year, Helsinki received more than 5,000 new residents. However, the migration gain was largely based on the foreign-speaking population, families with children who speak their native languages ​​flee to neighboring municipalities. Basic Finns call this kind of population development unfavorable.

In their initiative, the Basic Finns proposed that the reasons for those who moved away be investigated in more detail and that the city’s housing and land use program be reopened for review, so that the new projects correspond to “economic realities”.

Before when the group initiative submitted by the Basic Finns in August 2022 had time to be processed by the city council, the Basic Finns had entered the government.

That is probably one of the reasons why the discussion quickly got bogged down in the government’s cut lists and housing policy guidelines – both of which are considered harmful to Helsinki in many respects, also in the city’s official statements.

Veronika Honkasalo called the group’s initiative ridiculous, because Perusfinomaks sit in the current government. Basic Finns Hyttinen snapped answered Honkasalo, hoping that common sense would be used in the hall before “stupid speeches are made”.

initiative itself included key questions from the city’s point of view, for example how to stop population leakage to neighboring municipalities and how much can realistically be built in Helsinki in the next few years.

We could also have discussed what Helsinki as a city can do to reduce the need for income support for foreign speakers.

Based on Wednesday’s council meeting, it is difficult to have such a discussion. The inflamed social atmosphere can also be seen in the behavior of the city’s highest decision-makers.

As for the group initiative of basic Finns, its goal will be realized, but not in the council chamber: The city continues the sample survey among households that have moved away, and the housing and land use program is already being updated anyway.