Penza, 20 July 2015. PenzaNews. The head of Penza city Victor Kuvaytsev held a meeting with citizens in the receiving office of the United Russia party chairman Dmitry Medvedev on Monday, July 20. He met with 10 people, many of them worried by land plot and urban amenity issues.

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One of them, Tamara Chernova, an elderly woman, asked the city head to fix the sidewalk in the yard zone from Kalinina street and “Fortuna” shopping center down to “Pervomaisky” stadium.

“It is impossible to walk with children along Kalinina street since it stinks of car fumes. So I walk with my granddaughter between the houses, and everybody else does. And there are paved roads for walking that are broken down in some sections – either they repaired the pipelines, or just crumbled,” the pensioner said.

She also complained that the city crews do not clean the trash containers on Lobachevskovo back alley, basically forcing the workers of the nearby kindergarten to tend after the road on their own.

Victor Kuvaytsev promised her to take all the measures to resolve the problem.

“The citizens must know that the pipeline managing company must repair the asphalt to its original state on its own after the works. We simply would not be able to fix the potholes and the sidewalks after all repairs on our own,” he added.

In her turn, another elderly woman, a resident of the Zapadnaya Polyana city area, asked the head of the city to set up a bus route from her location to the city center.

“We cannot use those marshrutkas (shuttle buses). We are old. We go inside, can’t go in much, and the front places are occupied by the young and nobody lets us sit there instead,” she explained.

In reply, Victor Kuvaytsev stressed that the city administration already has a plan to replace mashrutkas with buses.

“It is not convenient for the city when 800 shuttle buses go on streets at once. They clog the streets, they don’t follow the traffic rules that well, and they are inconvenient for the elderly, so we agreed on that and work with the transportation to soon switch over to using buses,” he said.

The city head also noted that the current transportation companies are already considering replacing marshrutkas.

“We will research the variants. This is not a single day’s work. It won’t happen tomorrow, but we will move there,” he noted.

Moreover, the woman was worried about the high heating bills.

Victor Kuvaytsev explained that the bills are set by the regional bodies, and he as a city official is not in a position to change it.

“You have one option left: carefully manage your heat use to reduce the bills,” the city head explained.

He promised to sent a deputy to the area for scrutiny.

The city head also received the questions about people who lost homes in a fire, a land plot for a family with many children, and a house on Bogdanova street that should be deemed dilapidated.

Victor Kuvaytsev gave his explanations on all questions and promised the citizens to help.