OPEN LETTER: Response to the current situation related to the sale of Automatic Mills

Ing. Martin Charvát
Mayor of the City
Pardubice City Hall
Pernštýnské náměstí 1
530 21 Pardubice


Pardubice, September 24, 2015


OPEN LETTER:
Response to the Current Situation Related to the Sale of the Automatic Mills

Dear Mayor,
We are reaching out to you on behalf of the representatives of a broad professional and lay public, on behalf of the platform Mills for the City, whose goal was and is to lead a public discussion on the ways to integrate the Winternitz Mills site into the structure and life of the city and how to prevent the real threat of creating a decaying abandoned industrial site. From this platform, an interdisciplinary working group, Mills, was later formed, which has been dealing with the issue more deeply since October 2013. This working group has developed a document including a vision for future use, a spatial study, and a timeline of steps leading to the gradual revitalization and overall conversion of the site. The Mills working group, composed of representatives from several cultural non-profit organizations, architects, historians, and employees of the Pardubice City Hall, also collaborated with the Department of Development and Strategy in formulating a project sheet for drawing financial resources from ITI for the potential reconversion of the Automatic Mills site.
By the city of Pardubice withdrawing from the intention to purchase the mills after two years of consideration, it has squandered a chance that may never come again. As we have mentioned several times and declared in each of the partial studies, the significance of the site for the city lay not only in its historical value, which was confirmed by its inclusion in the list of national cultural monuments, but also in its location in the very center of the city. The city thus loses the opportunity to fully utilize the potential of its most significant industrial monument and the possibility to influence its future.
We also pause to note that the city leadership was not open to meet personally with representatives of the interdisciplinary working group Mills during the year, despite multiple requests for such a meeting. The initiative and the working group have declared their willingness to assist throughout the entire process, knowing that the intention of the purchase must be relevantly substantiated. Therefore, we have developed partial studies, with which you had the opportunity to familiarize yourself and on which it was desirable to work further and develop them. However, this process could not continue without your openness to mutual communication and cooperation. To date, no outputs documenting the independent activity of the city leadership have been published, on the basis of which the public would be informed about the vision of the future development of the site, or arguments established for resigning from efforts for an autonomous approach of the city.

Part of the election program of the ANO party included a point dedicated to the topic of the Automatic Mills and their transformation into a cultural public space. Your political party won, and you took the mayor's chair. We hereby request your official position on how you intend to fulfill the mentioned point of the election program under the current situation and what the city's leadership's vision is related to the Automatic Mills site.
Thank you, and we look forward to your response.

Members of the Mills Working Group

Lucie Břízová, Pardubice City Hall
Tereza Dvořáková, Offcity z. s.
Vladan Hanulík, Offcity z. s.
Karolína Koupalová, Pardubice City Hall
Bohdan Šeda, Offcity z. s.
Ondřej Teplý, Offcity z. s.
Štěpán Vacík, Pardubice City Hall
František R. Václavík, Offcity z. s.
Šárka Zahálková, Divadlo 29
Zdeněk Závodný, Divadlo 29