Tallinn Activists Want Kindergartens, Not Partisan TV
A grassroots campaign in the Estonian capital to have municipal funding diverted from Tallinn TV (TTV) to the city's underfunded kindergartens has received a requisite number of signatures to bring the issue before city council.
Citizen's Voice, the non-profit organization that launched the campaign earlier this year, announced on August 24 that it has the signatures of 4,500 Tallinn residents.
The aim of the campaign is to pressure Tallinn council members to redirect 2 million euros earmarked for TTV to the city's underfunded and overcrowded kindergartens.
The declining state of Tallinn's preschool system was brought to public attention earlier this week in a feature story on ETV: the facade of Jaan Poska Kindergarten was literally crumbling.
"Yes, there are problems in many kindergartens," Citizen's Voice spokesperson Brit Kerbo told ETV. "Now, that was a single example of what can happen when infrastructure fails. But kindergartens definitely need money fast."
By law, people and groups need the signatures of 1 percent of the municipality's population - 4,130 people - to bring a motion before council. So Citizen's Voice has exceeded the minimum legal requirement for pressing their case.
But the campaign organizers aren't holding their breath for change: they realize that TTV was the political creation of the Centre Party, which dominates city council.
Indeed, Tallinn Mayor Edgar Savisaar and his Centre Party created TTV earlier this year as a political alternative to nationwide media outlets, which Savisaar has repeatedly accused of having a pro-national government bias.
Yet, as Citizen's Voice activists point out, with TTV's basement-level ratings - 1.8 percent share of overall viewership, the lowest of all TV channels - the city lacks even a fiscal rationale for public funding.
In an interview with Eesti Päevaleht earlier this month, Citizen's Voice board member Katrin Väljataga predicted that Centre Party councillors will vote down any diversion of municipal funds from TTV.
"However, the aim is to keep up discussion in society," Väljataga said, "and, through the Tallinn City Council and government influence, reevaluate budgetary priorities."
Andres Kahar