The newspaper Poltavshchyna has accused the city authorities of planning to convene in secret. Acting mayor Kateryna Yamshchykova explained that the session had to be held urgently because there was a list of issues that needed to be resolved as quickly as possible, but did not specify which issues those were.
The newspaper writes that an extraordinary Poltava City Council session is scheduled for 26 September. The date was determined at an approval meeting between the heads of factions and acting mayor Kateryna Yamshchykova. The Poltava City Council website has not yet released an order convening the session or the draft decisions, nor has the session agenda been officially announced.
Poltavshchyna journalists continue to report a lack of open information and note that they “only ever learn the agendas from insiders.”
“So far our data suggests that the session plans to approve financial assistance to Poltavavodokanal, approve the network of school institutions for the new academic year, and discuss Teacher’s Day bonuses for teachers. But even the deputies themselves cannot say for sure whether this initiative will be included in the agenda. There is also a possibility that a staff issue will be raised at the session, namely the dismissal of deputy mayor Volodymyr Cherednychenko,” Poltavshchyna writes.
The newspaper’s journalists stress that “the opacity and withholding documents are in violation of the Poltava City Council’s regulations.”
“Kateryna Yamshchykova, who a few years ago demanded that Oleksandr Mamai publish draft decisions 20 days before the session,” the media writes.
Following the reporting by Poltavshchyna and questions from journalists in a Telegram group chat, Kateryna Yamshchykova responded. She made a Telegram post reporting that she had “signed an order to convene an extraordinary 71st session of the Poltava City Council for Friday, 26 September.”
“The specialized commissions are now working on the list of issues before submitting them to the session,” Yamshchykova wrote. She explained that the session had to be held urgently because some issues “need to be considered at a session and, according to the requests by the administrators, some of them needed to be considered as soon as possible.
“At our meeting, the heads of factions and I also discussed holding a planned session in October. The preparations have begun accordingly,” the official wrote.
Volodymyr Zelenchuk, a lawyer at the Institute of Mass Information, says that draft decisions being registered, reviewed by a specialized commission, included in the agenda, and considered at a council meeting as urgent all in one day is more than common in many City Councils.
“The law ‘On Access to Public Information’ requires that draft decisions by local government bodies be made public no later than 10 working days before they are set to be considered for adoption,” said Volodymyr Zelenchuk.
However, the lawyer stressed that the requirement was not absolute, since the Law “On Local Self-Government” says that draft acts can be published immediately after being prepared (regardless of the 10-day period before consideration) in the event of emergencies and other urgent cases specified in the law.
“What’s interesting is that these cases should be outlined by law and not invented by deputies themselves. However, this ‘exceptional cases’ clause is actively exploited when someone needs to pass a decision quickly,” the lawyer said.
He added that the violation of deadlines in itself can be considered a violation of the law on access to public information, as well as one of the grounds for appealing the Council’s decision.
“The first case would require that all deputies who voted for urgency and for the issue to be included on the agenda early be held accountable. As for the second case, procedural violations are not an exclusive basis for canceling the Council’s decision unless the plaintiff proves direct infringement of their rights,” Volodymyr Zelenchuk said.
Earlier, Poltavshchyna accused the acting mayor of lying, but she denied it. In May 2025, Poltava journalists reported unsatisfactory communication by the City Council and claimed that there is an unnamed and unauthorized person in the Council who instructs the staff on how to communicate with media professionals and what to discuss. In the autumn of 2024, the news outlets Poltavshchyna and Zmist complained that the acting mayor Kateryna Yamshchykova and the mayor’s first deputies had forbidden the directors of Poltava’s municipal companies, in particular those subordinate to the Housing and Communal Services Department of the City Council, to talk with journalists. The news outlets also reported that information queries from the media remained unanswered. The city authorities denied the allegations.