Join the campaign, sign the petition and help Fethiye secure the Province (City) status it rightly deserves.
Fethiye Municipality held a meeting this week to discuss and announce its campaign plans to secure Fethiye a Province (City) status.
Suleyman Akbay, Director at Oceanwide Properties said, “Should “Fethiye il Olsun” (Fethiye to be a City Movement) succeed, it would result in many benefits for residents and those with investments or property in the area. Many decisions concerning the running of the town, it’s facilities and infrastructure could be made far faster. Fethiye has already come on leaps and bounds over the past few years, this would raise Fethiye’s profile even further bringing all of us with an interest in Fethiye many rewards”.
The battle to get Fethiye officially declared a province has been going on for many years. It has gathered momentum in this, the run up to a National Election, in the hope that Ankara will finally take note and fulfil its past promises.
The meeting was led by Fethiye Mayor Behcet Saatci and attended by officials from 38 civil organisations. Representatives from the Chamber of Commerce, Fethiye Tradesman and Transport Chambers and the local football club joined politicians wearing campaign hats and jackets in public support of the cause.
Ismail Ozturk, Chairman of FethiyeSpor FC, said the aim was to gather 100,000 signatures by March 8th 2015. They would then send the petition directly to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ahmet Davutoglu, the current Prime Minister asking for action.
“I have one dream, to make Fethiye a City!” said by Mayor Behcet Saatci
During the meeting Saatci reminisced about a time he was sat in a tea house in Ortaca speaking to local villagers. “They wished Fethiye was a city” he said, “they thought it would solve many problems”.
Fethiye has long deserved city status. Tourist numbers visiting the town have grown year on year, there are more civil organisations and businesses registered in Fethiye than many other Provinces. At present, major decisions concerning the towns running has to be passed via Mugla, the closest city 126 kilometers away. This is costly, involves a lot of additional paper pushing and takes time. Should Fethiye be granted Province status, new local departments dealing with these issues would be formed creating jobs, cutting down the bureaucracy and time wasted travelling before decisions could be made.
“If Fethiye succeeds in becoming a Province, it could seriously boost property prices and investment in the area” Suleyman concludes, “Please join Oceanwide Properties and sign the petition”.
The petitions are now drawn up and available throughout Fethiye and online. For those that wish to support and sign Fethiye il Olsun, you can do so like Suleyman at the Zabita office, FethiyeSpor Stadium, Erasta Shopping Centre or at one of the pop up stalls found in central Fethiye. There is also an online petition found on Change.org, please follow the link. Please share or like this post so others can see our post and hopefully support the campaign.
Much of the information above was translated from the Fethiye Belediye Website and article in the Hurriyet Turkish Newspaper.
