This is defnitely corruption…
Helsinki Mayor Jussi Pajunen served as chairman of the board of a real estate company that plans to build a shopping center near Malmi Airport. At the same time, he and the city decided to shut down Malmi Airport and turn it into a huge residential area, perfect for his new shopping center. Nice try Jussi…
The court found that a conflict of interest can exist if a person takes part in the decision-making process while serving on the board of a company that might benefit or be harmed by the decision. In 2002, when the decision was made, Pajunen was a member of the Helsinki City Board.
In the view of the court, the conflict of interest arose from the fact that at the same time he also served as chairman of the board of the real estate development company Malmi Nova, which was planning an expansion of a nearby shopping centre.
The city plan calls for closing down the Malmi Airport, which is used by light aircraft, into a residential area for 10,000 people. The Supreme Administrative Court feels that setting up a large residential area where near the shopping mall has significant economic implications for Malmi Nova.
Well he is a member of the right wing kokoomus
Comment by Anonymous — Wed, Nov 8th, 2006 @ 6:16 pm
Does anyone else think he looks freakily like George Bush?
Comment by Toby — Wed, Nov 8th, 2006 @ 6:21 pm
I agree, this is not good. Perhaps nepotism not corruption. But whatever you call it, appears to be an abuse of his powers.
I wander what is going on with Malm airport these days. I know they want to close it down, but there is (was) a big movement to save it.
Comment by JG — Wed, Nov 8th, 2006 @ 6:46 pm
Perhaps he was just too high to remember that he had a stake in the airport business.
Comment by Anonymous — Wed, Nov 8th, 2006 @ 7:54 pm
crap, I would have been better had he been SDP or Keskusta
Comment by bill — Wed, Nov 8th, 2006 @ 8:15 pm
Strange that so few of you seem to have any awareness that Little Jussi is the scion of the Pajunen retail empire… nobody worked out what Alepa means? (They sold out to SOK a few years back)
He’s a Liberal by family background, by the way. They’re the ones Phil said he’d back. It figures.
Pajunen only jumped to the National Coalition (Kokoomus) ship about ten years ago. Thus far, he’s been one of the very few turncoat success stories.
Comment by kylmä totuus — Wed, Nov 8th, 2006 @ 10:59 pm
Toby: he does look exactly like President Bush.
kylmä totuus: Yep, he used to be the liberal candidate in most elections in Helsinki. Jumping ship to Kokoomus who rule here helped him become mayor.
Comment by Helsinkian — Thu, Nov 9th, 2006 @ 12:26 pm
I totally don’t understand why they want to rip up that lovely old historic airport for some shitty concrete apartment towers that, if you have read the geologic study on the land, will likely sink into the murk as the area is completely unsuitable for building such towers…it actually almost didn’t work as an airport either. Someone is going to make a lot of money and walk away quickly as the land swallows the development since building the pillars down to bedrock would bite into the margin of profit far enough to make it a very unattractive investment which likely means they won’t do it.
Comment by hfb — Thu, Nov 9th, 2006 @ 6:22 pm
Hfb, sweet heart, when was it the last time that these high rollers gave a rat’s ass about what they had to demolish or what swamp they were planning for developement as long as there is some dough for them when the dust settles down?
Comment by Petteri — Fri, Nov 10th, 2006 @ 2:09 pm
Hi, this isn’t actually a comment on the article.. sorry. I just tried to set up a livejournal rss feed for this blog and quite a few articles came up as broken in the rss feed due to tags having extra “‘s such as
Other posts that are affected:
http://syndicated.livejournal.com/finland4thought/1570.html
http://syndicated.livejournal.com/finland4thought/2219.html
http://syndicated.livejournal.com/finland4thought/2376.html
Just letting you know. Just in case you can be bothered fixing them
Comment by Angela Randall — Sat, Nov 11th, 2006 @ 2:54 am
Ack! Sorry the code got eaten. &left;img&right; tags seem to be the problem as it says img src=”http://www.finlandforthought.net/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/bling_bling.jpg” alt=”"”
It’s that last extra ” that’s breaking it
Comment by Angela Randall — Sat, Nov 11th, 2006 @ 2:56 am
I think people are just jumping to conclusions cause everyine loves a conspiracy. I highly doubt there was any corruption going on.
Comment by Anonymous — Sun, Nov 12th, 2006 @ 7:45 pm
should I come living in Finland, I doubt I would suffer any nostalgia -(Chap from Italy)- strudel
Comment by strudel — Sun, Nov 12th, 2006 @ 8:12 pm