zemeunvalsts.lv introductory note. In January this year we wrote about the situation in the regions and in Latvia's smaller towns, choosing Sabile as the first of them*. Since then there have been changes in the leadership of Talsi municipality, the somewhat forgotten words “thrift” and “frugality” have returned to local government, and, in connection with the still unfinished administrative-territorial reform, various activities have emerged as residents of the “large municipalities” initiate changes (splitting off, joining, returning...). What follows is about Sabile and the bustle, action and initiative of its residents.

At the end of last summer the people of Sabile learned about the association “Sabiles attīstībai”. It has brought together local entrepreneurs who see great opportunity and development potential in Sabile. Soon, on 2 June, the association will be a year old, which is a fairly short time in which to achieve something very, very ambitious, yet at the same time the association has already accomplished a good deal.

A meeting between entrepreneurs and municipal staff was once the pretext for forming a group of like-minded people who would represent Sabile's interests more loudly and more persistently. The association began work with 11 members (at present there are 12).

“Last year we saw changes on the board, because the original chair had to turn to other duties, so Ansis Bērziņš is now in the chair,” says board member Andis Alksniņš. The association's board chair Ansis Bērziņš adds to this, stressing that the most important thing is not new members but the fact that not one of the original members has left the association and that they are all still actively involved in its work.

Speaking of what has been achieved over the year, these are mostly things that residents might not notice “with the eye”. “A year is not a particularly long time. People generally take the view that if something has been done, there must necessarily be something to look at or touch – for example – a bench or a clock put up somewhere. That is not how it works. You have to understand that these are various (often lengthy) processes before you arrive at something you can look at. Ideas are a good contribution. We have talked with the association's representatives, there have been ideas, and I very much hope that what follows will be successful enough for residents to have something to look at too. We can walk into a shop and quickly buy a loaf of bread, but when it comes to any kind of activity, these are labour- (and time-) consuming processes before you reach a result. I think, and I know, that there will be tangible things that the public will appreciate,” is how Zigmunds Brunavs, head of the Sabile town and Abava parish administration, assesses the situation.

There are many ideas and thoughts, and it is not always possible to realise them as quickly as one would like. Board members of the association say that residents sometimes have a mistaken view of what the association does – it will not build houses, will not repair roads, will not put up the new bridge under its own steam. The association's function is to convey residents' thoughts and ideas more loudly to the people who take the decisions, to stand up for those thoughts and ideas, and to keep a finger on the pulse so that proposals are not forgotten and set aside.

“We have talked a lot about development projects, where I have drawn something up myself beforehand – for example, the creative courtyard by the culture centre, which I want to take further. There was a competition for a viewing terrace by the Abava, where with the help of Sabile people and friends we came third among 112 entries. Unfortunately the Latgalians were more active than the people of Kurzeme. But there is no shortage of ideas and projects,” explains Andis Alksniņš, stressing that the funding they did not win has not been a reason to give up on it all and stop.

“For the viewing platform idea to be realised, the... view itself has to be freed up. A scheme of the viewpoint was drawn up, marking which trees would have to be felled to open up the historic view of Sabile. At first the talks were with the town administration, then the Green Space Management Commission came out to us and made an assessment, and after that the project was passed on to the Nature Conservation Agency (DAP) for their opinion. Since DAP, not we, are the commissioning party, I have not yet received information on how the process has concluded. This is the ‘freshest' bureaucratic (approval) process the association has been involved in. As a result, at the beginning of April the Nature Conservation Agency cleared part of the bank of the Abava, cutting out the scrub, and at this year's Big Clean-Up the association decided to continue the work by tidying up one of the more distant stretches,” explains A. Alksniņš.

At the moment the buildings in the centre of Sabile are under discussion. “We have a small piece of groundwork that we did, namely, we drew up a list of buildings that in our view do not adorn the town but rather worsen the impression of it. These are buildings we noticed ourselves; it is not a register or anything of the sort, but a sufficiently detailed and long list, which we asked the municipal council to study carefully as well. It is like a crib sheet for a serious piece of work that ought to be done. In our view, one should start with an inspection of the buildings, then talk to the owner of each building about the scope for improving something – for example, putting the building's façade in order (smartening it up). There are buildings that perhaps even need to be demolished. Here it should be recalled that what goes on inside each house is not our business, but buildings like this stop the town from being tidy and attractive,” board member Baiba Circene says of the serious and far-reaching plans ahead.

The list of buildings was drawn up “without emotion” – if a house is visually unappealing, it went on the list. What we saw, what looked visually unappealing, we noted down, because that is what visitors to Sabile see, and they could not care less whether a building is old, whether it has a splendid history, or whether a lovely old lady lives in it. Members of the association are on the list too – nobody was deliberately sorted out or overlooked. The list of “shabby” houses also includes the old part of the culture centre, because its façade has crumbled badly. The building is beautiful, but from the outside it looks very sad. Our aim is not to get anyone punished; we want the town to become and to look more beautiful. One thing we can do ourselves is to put our own properties in order. If someone has not thought about it, this is a way of bringing about change with a nudge from us or from the municipality, in the hope that no sanctions of any kind are needed. It is a hope that the owner of the building has simply forgotten about it or has not given it enough thought,” says B. Circene.

The list of buildings mentioned has now been handed over to the municipality, and the members of “Sabiles attīstībai” think that in this situation it would be good to put up an informative explanation in the town about what owners of such buildings should do. “It is in fact construction, where you cannot just go and demolish or build something, or paint it. There is a regulatory framework. Preparing explanatory material on what the right steps are for particular actions, and how to go about it, does not require large sums,” Baiba Circene stresses.

The former Sabile fire station has not been forgotten either, and discussion of it turns out to be quite lengthy. “That was one of the association's first pieces of work. We genuinely hoped to get the municipality not to give up this property. Before that, understandably, there was the conversation about keeping the fire brigade, which was, unfortunately, hopeless, and it was not in our power to save it. The next aim was to get the building to remain in the municipality's ownership, because Talsi municipality had the chance to acquire it free of charge. The municipality refused; they did not need it. We tried to show that this is an object in the town centre that it would not be sensible to give up, because you can never know what will happen to it. There is a very high probability that the fire station will fade into nothing, like the old kindergarten. At present, in my view, what we tried to explain to Eva Kārkliņa, the then chair of Talsi municipal council, has unfortunately been fully borne out – if the building is sold, at some point it may end up in the hands of an owner who has no interest in anything. Right now the result is exactly that,” Ansis Bērziņš assesses the situation critically.

“I see both success and failure. The success lies in the fact that the fire station essentially united the association around its first goal. The second is that we showed that there are people living in Sabile who care. Indifference towards what goes on in the town was to some extent the reason the association came into being, because – if the local authority does not care, there are nevertheless people in the town with ideas and a wish to do something. We drove to Talsi, presented the ideas at one of the committee sittings, described what this building could be. The decision had of course already been taken, and hearing us out was merely a formal gesture of courtesy on the municipality's part – so that we could come over, have our say, voice our grievance, even though... they already knew that the decision would not be changed. But... well, at Talsi municipality they now see and know that there is an association in Sabile that will not allow such things – we became more visible and more audible. Yes, that happened in a situation which for Sabile has not, for now, ended positively, but... I say ‘for now', because there is no knowing how long the fire station building will have its current owner. Perhaps another will come along who cares about it all a great deal more. There is still hope,” is how A. Alksniņš describes the events around the Sabile fire station building.

At present the former Sabile fire station building is up for sale again. On contacting the current owner, one gathers that for unknown reasons the building has not lived up to the hopes he had previously cherished. “Views change in life – we buy something, we sell something. I have had no intention of working with the local association to develop some plan of theirs,” the building's owner says in a telephone conversation.

At present the most topical idea concerns Sabile's Wine Hill, since as early as the last weekend of July Sabile will be celebrating the 25th Sabile Wine Festival, which would not exist without Wine Hill. “We are proud that Wine Hill is now the symbol of Sabile; for me personally it is very dear. At the same time, the hill is a very large, untapped potential. Then again, from a person's point of view, not everyone finds the motivation to go and climb it: ‘What am I going to see up there, then?' A magnet is missing. We have all dreamed that up at the top there could be a pavilion with a café, which has never happened. Perhaps Wine Hill needs to be leased to someone? That thought, in turn, will be seen by others as a provocation; I see in it a topic for discussion,” explains Ansis Bērziņš.

Andis Alksniņš has made public his idea of how the central gates of Sabile's Wine Hill might look. It was also shown to the Sabile town and Abava parish administration. “Wine Hill is not a project but the administration's day-to-day work. The idea – an outside view of how things ought to be there – is a good one, but I can neither say nor promise that we will be able to realise it 100%. We have to look at the situation in the municipality. If what is needed is people's labour, we can manage that; if some material outlay is required, that will be harder. A result is only possible through discussion. We try to approach the event creatively and to realise at least part of what has been envisaged,” is how Zigmunds Brunavs assesses the ideas from his side.

The association “Sabiles attīstībai” is like spare-time work for its members, since each of them has their own occupations and duties day to day. Looking back on the first year, the members can see that even in spare-time work each of them has put in enough to make Sabile a tidier and more noticeable place, not only for visitors to the town but also for residents in their daily lives. “One important thing I have observed over this year is that we are very different people, we are not one drop of water, each has their own vision and their own interests. There are entrepreneurs who think not only about Sabile. There are clashes of opinion, so sometimes the ‘association chat' is enough, where you can go through a ‘brainstorm' in waves. We are not like one family holding hands,” is how Andis Alksniņš describes the association's first year.

“You could call it a year of learning, in which each of us has picked up something new and looked into areas we had no connection with before. At the moment each of us understands a little better how things work in the world, because day to day each of us does something else – things with no connection to the town administration at all,” Baiba Circene adds to the above.

“For any populated place, residents' activity is very significant and necessary. Where there are opinions, there is a core and clarity about what is needed and what the local administration can do. Those are in fact the principles we work by. At various meetings we have listened to various suggestions about what the town and the parish need, and going by that we have to see what we can realise. Residents' activity and involvement are unequivocally very important. Since the recent pandemic people have withdrawn into themselves more, keep to themselves, are not as active, which we also see at cultural events. If there is activity among the residents, the place (the town, the village, the parish) is alive. If residents get actively involved in various processes, it means they are interested in what is happening here and what will happen,” is how Z. Brunavs describes the cooperation with residents.

The association “Sabiles attīstībai” believes that communication between the local administration and the public is not sufficient, and so its members will take care to see that residents' voices are heard and listened to. “We have concluded that a great deal would happen differently if people knew how to and wanted to speak out, to talk, to comment, and took part in events that have no direct, immediate result, but where one is to be expected in the long term. With every single thing we talk about, it is quite possible that someone would disagree, and that is only normal and natural. That is precisely why it is important for opinions to be gathered together and for us to be able to talk about them. Unfortunately, people often will not come forward and tell you of their own accord; they have to be asked. I know very well what any municipal employee or councillor will say – that nobody comes to the meetings, and that is true too, it is a very ‘stable' habit. For residents to come, you have to say it and urge them several times. Likewise, a disbelief that anything will change has probably taken root. That is why in the association we do not wait for whether or when anyone will ask for something; we go and do, in the hope that someone will ‘be drawn along', in the hope that someone in the political or administrative leadership will hear and that something will change,” Ansis Bērziņš sums up what has been said.

* https://www.zemeunvalsts.lv/articles/view/b6f8dc086b2d60c5856e4ff517060392