2003-06-13 Ron Huldai
 |
 Israeli
Cities
|
|
|
Good News and Bad News From Tel Aviv's Mayor San Diego Jewish
Press-Heritage, June 13, 2003
|
|
2003-06-13 Ron Huldai |
||||
|
|
|
||||
|
|
| By
Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO Mayor Ron Huldai of Tel Aviv can tell you some interesting "good news/bad news" stories about his city. The good news? "It's a city that never sleeps," there's always something exciting going on, and "even at 2 a.m., it is like 2 in the afternoon." Additionally, Tel Aviv is the cultural heart of Israel, where "70 percent of the people in theaters, entertainment, opera and concerts are in the vicinity of Tel Aviv," he said. Not only that, but "maybe 40 percent of the employees in the fields of banking and the insurance businesses are working in Tel Aviv." In an interview June 3 at the Casa de Bandini in Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, Mayor Huldai turned to some of the problems facing his city, problems with which any big-city American mayor might empathize. Inside the city limits of Tel Aviv are only about 400,000 residents, but "there are perhaps one million people commuting in and out" from their homes in neighboring cities. The greater Tel Aviv area has a population between 2.5 million and 3 million people "The commuters are harming the quality of life for those who are living in Tel Aviv because of the pollution, the traffic, the lack of parking spaces," Huldai said. "We are taking off (collecting) three times more garbage per capita than any other city around us. There is a deterioration of the infrastructure." Huldai told Heritage that he therefore has "two missions: first to keep the centrality of the city of Tel Aviv, because it is to the benefit of Tel Aviv to collect more revenues, but on the other hand, to be very careful so that the city doesnıt become deserted because of the pollution." He said Tel Aviv invests between 3 and 5 percent of its total budget to underwrite the arts and other cultural activities, which bring people into the city at night and support restaurants and other businesses that in turn pay property taxes to the city. As mayor, he has tried to stretch the city budget through a reorganization plan negotiated with the unions. "If you give two workers three dollars more than you did before, but they can do the work of three people, okay, so, it is a bargain," Huldai said. "You set the goal, you have the plan, you have control, you analyze the results, make some changes, and go through the same cycle again," said Huldai, who is a former school principal as well as a former brigadier general in the Israel Defense Forces. To reduce pollution from commuter automobiles, the city is actively pushing mass transit. A rail line is planned between Tel Aviv and the neighboring city of Petach Tikvah an eight-kilometer route that will be mainly underground. Four companies are competing for the contract, he said. Lines to other cities in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area also are in the planning stages "By the way," he added, "we are having a revolution in Israel: the train usage is enormous. Four years ago, we had only two train stations on the Ayalon (the road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem), now we have four. The number of passengers taking trains in Israel went up by 30 percent a year." Whereas such train routes as those between Tel Aviv and Haifa have been long popular, "now we have trains from Beersheva, Ashkelon, Rishon Letzion and Kfar Saba," Huldai said The growth in train ridership comes notwithstanding some people's fears about exposing themselves on public transportation to possible terrorism. "Letıs talk about fear," Huldai told Heritage. "Sometimes you (Americans) are afraid more than we. We are living with this. Sixty thousand kids are going to school in Tel Aviv every day. I am going out and about without any bodyguard every hour in the daytime. There is no fear." Fear or not, terrorism associated with the Palestinian intifada has adversely affected Israelıs economy to the point that Huldai is worried that, without outside help, he wonıt be able to maintain some of the city's cherished programs, particularly in the field of education. His visit to San Diego was part of a U.S. fundraising tour, in association with the Tel Aviv Foundation, to help his city pay for such programs as "home environment centers for children from the age of 3 to 5." These programs benefit children "especially from the low socio-economic areas," including Jaffa, where many Arab citizens are concentrated, Huldai said. "If we are neglecting them, we are going to have problems 13 years from now," he added. "At ages 3-5, you can correct something." Provided with introductions by Gert Thaler, the longtime Heritage columnist, Huldai's goal was to find philanthropists willing to help Tel Aviv in a variety of areas, including "maintaining the standard we achieved, not giving up even one class of kindergarten." It costs approximately $60,000 per year to accommodate 30 kindergartners, a teacher and an aide in a small room with facilities nearby. Huldai said he had some successes in the San Diego area, although he declined to identify local donors. A relatively small, but seemingly insoluble problem for Huldai is the presence of "about 200 homeless people" who live in the central core area of Tel Aviv. Whereas in San Diego some homeless are Vietnam veterans suffering from the combination of battle stress, alcohol or drugs, in Tel Aviv "our homeless are a different kind of origin," Huldai said. "Mainly they are immigrants, Russian immigrants, and some of them are illegal workers who become junkies, drug-addicted. Very few are part of the society of Israelis. "We are putting a lot of effort to deal with it, but it is very
difficult," Huldai said. "You have the human right that you cannot
arrest somebody to take them to treatment. ...We offer them a great deal, but
they refuse to take it.. ... I have enough space to treat all of them. I have
clean beds, hot |
