Varuzhan Nersisyan lost the election for mayor held on November 13, but his term in office ends on December 20.

That’s why he was able to convene an Ijevan Municipal Council session on November 28. That the Council was to meet was never publicly announced, as required by law. Even the Ijevan Municipality’s website made no such announcement.

Even certain members of the Council itself, including Vardan Ghalumyan, who won the November 13 election, were never notified.

It was only after the Council met that a few posters were affixed to the wall of the town’s sports school.

The day after the session, a municipality worker went and plastered some flyers about the “upcoming” meeting around town even though it had already taken place the day before. (Maybe his concept of damage control?)

Anyway, the council only took 90 minutes to approve the 16 point agenda. The real sticking point was the decision take by the Council to grant a free operating license to a company called Ijevan Tourism and Business” for the Spitak Litch (White Lake) artificial reservoir.

When putting the matter up for a vote, Nersisyan argued that the lake and surrounding parkland would greatly assist in the overall development of Ijevan as a resort area. He said that over the years, sediments had turned the lake into a swamp that was ecologically unhealthy and that cleaning the slime was a priority for the town. He noted, however, that the town didn’t have the resources for the job.

Thus, Nersisyan stated that handing over the reservoir to a private concern for free was a necessity in order to have it cleaned.

I should note that the director of Ijevan Tourism is Karen Nersisyan, a relative of Varuzhan Nersisyan and also a member of the Ijevan Municipal Council. The other two company shareholders are Seyran Saribekyan and Nayira Gevorgyan.

Many local residents believe that Varuzhan Nersisyan is the actual owner of the company.

While ten of the Council members voted in favour of handing over the reservoir to the company for 40 years, none of them ever asked if Ijevan Tourism has experience in dredging a lake bottom and what was to be dredged – just the muddy ooze or the sand dropped by the inflowing river.

The question that begs answering is if the town’s budget doesn’t have the resources to clean the lake bottom, how will this company get the job done?

Perhaps the Ijevan Council members do not recollect the articles I penned for Hetq in 2009 regarding illegal sand mining in the reservoir and for which Mayor Varuzhan Nersisyan took Hetq to court for defamation.

There were a number of operators at the time that caught the attention of the tax authorities after Hetq went public with the story.

By handing over the reservoir to a private company, the town will be deprived of a possible important tax revenue base.

At the session, the Ijevan Council also approved measures presented by Varuzhan Nersisyan to hand over other town property to private concerns.

A 493 square meter parcel of land belonging to the former town kindergarten was handed over at no cost to the Ijevan institute; 182 square meters of the same land was handed to Avandouyt Ltd and 31 s.m. to the Kanach Tavoush NGO.

Here, I should add that the director of the institute is council member Hasmik Amiryan.

For the twelve years he’s served as Ijevan mayor, Varuzhan Nersisyan had never resolved the matter of allocating free apartments to the residents living at 50 Gharagyouzyan and 82 Blboulyan Streets.

But now, after losing the election, he proposed that 38 residents at 50 Gharagyouzyan and 32 residents at Blboulyan be granted their apartments for free. The council passed the resolution.

At a November 10 Ijevan Council session, just days before the election, embers passed a resolution submitted by Nersisyan to transfer four parcels of municipal residential land to specific individuals.

During the past six months, both prior to and after the mayoral election, large numbers of plots have been sold off by the Ijevan Municipality. But the town’s budget hasn’t grown all that much as a result.

In a final gesture before leaving office, members at the November 28 council session passed a resolution by Nersisyan to call in a special auditing firm to check the municipality’s books for the period January 1, 2010 to December 1, 2011.

In effect, Nersisyan wants to cover his financial tracks before taking off.

As if this wasn’t enough, to add final insult to injury, Ijevan taxpayers will be footing the bill.

First photo by Gagik Shamshyan