The Oulu City Council released a statement Monday regarding the city’s preparation for its merger with several surrounding municipalities. The Ministry of Finance also informed local authorities of its opinion concerning the merger plans.
All parties affected by the merger will have until April 13 to lodge any protests. A regional presentation meeting will be held in Oulu next Monday to explain the plan in more detail. The hope of the Finnish government is that the soon to be merged municipalities would be a formal, cohesive administrative unit in early 2015.
A task force has presented a proposal outlining the form and implementation the new city of Oulu, which will be open to public debate.
The municipalities set to merge with Oulu are Hailuoto, Ii, Kempele, Liminka, Muhos, Pudasjärvi, Tyrnävä, Utajärvi and Vaala, as well as Haukipudas, Kiiminki, Oulunsalo and Yli-Ii, which will join Oulu already next year.
The statement, which was drafted by the government of the city of Oulu, argues that the timetable for a 2015 merger is too tight, and that the move should be carried out no earlier than early 2017.
The decision-making process has been lengthy. The two-year process of preparing for the merger and creation of the “new Oulu” has been long and demanding. In addition, the preparations for the city’s 2013 merger with five outlying municipalities are still unfinished and are locking up a fair amount of municipal resources.
With this in mind, city officials think that the initial merger should be put off until 2014 at earliest, and they have noted that creating a new city requires thorough groundwork.
A new city council would be chosen in municipal elections in 2016 and officeholders in the new city would start making decisions for the new dynamic municipality in 2017.