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Since Mayor Ruvik Danilovich Took Office Six Years Ago, Beersheba Has Developed at a Dizzying Pace by Patricia Golan

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Since Mayor Ruvik Danilovich Took Office Six Years Ago, Beersheba Has Developed at a Dizzying Pace by Patricia Golan Israel Southern comfort Since Mayor Ruvik Danilovich took office six years ago, Beersheba has developed at a dizzying pace By Patricia Golan THE MAYOR was fuming. The long-planned a dispute between the Finance and Defense IDF training bases to the central Negev and massive relocation of Israel Defense Forces Ministries. the Intelligence Directorate and the C4I Tele- facilities from the center of the country to The biggest project the state has ever processing Corps to Beersheba, has been the south has just been put on hold due to known, involving the staged transfer of eight stymied by what Beersheba Mayor Ruvik 24 THE JERUSALEM REPORT JANUARY 26, 2015 Ruvik Danilovich poses on the new Pipes Bridge, a pedestrian bridge incorporating existing water pipes, which connects the Beersheba River Park to the Old City His city is rapidly on its way to becoming the country’s Silicon Valley. Partly in antic- ipation of the army’s move south, several of the world’s largest R&D high-tech corpo- rations are setting up their main cyber and investment centers in the city. Multination- als, such as Deutsche Telekom, EMC Corp., IBM and Lockheed Martin have begun moving into the new Advanced Technolo- gies Park (ATP) next to Ben-Gurion Uni- versity. While some of the transfer has already been completed, the high-tech relocation project, the key to what promises to be the economic transformation of the Negev, had suddenly been delayed. With the dissolution of the 19th Knesset, the ministries had accused each other of withholding funds. In a last-minute reprieve, acting Finance Minister Prime Minister Benjamin Net- anyahu pushed through a cabinet decision on January 4, authorizing the budget for the move. Danilovich could breathe a sigh of relief. Danilovich is Beersheba’s eighth mayor since the establishment of the state, but he’s the first who was born and raised in the city. “All the rest parachuted in from other places in the country,” observes Ruvik. “I think the residents finally understood that it was about time a local boy took charge.” Danilovich’s roots are in the Labor party, beginning his career with the Histadrut labor federation’s southern district. He campaigned and worked for former mayor Yaakov Terner beginning in Tern- er’s first run for the office in 1998. Terner’s campaign jingle at the time was “Beersheba takes off with Terner,” a slogan that played successfully on his reputation as one of the country’s great flyboys – IAF fighter pilot and brigadier-general – and later, after he re- tired from the IAF, as police inspector-gen- eral. Terner took the young Danilovich under his wing, appointing him deputy mayor at age 28 in charge of education, sports, music, culture and neighborhood renewal. Danilovich start- ed showing up in schools, developing rela- YEHUDA LACHIANI / MAARIV / LACHIANI YEHUDA tionships with his future voters – it was his first lesson in building a political base. Danilovich calls “ego fights between people Beersheba has developed at a dizzying pace, Terner made no secret of the fact that he who don’t seem to understand this is a mis- with billions invested in private and public would like to see his protégé as his suc- sion of the highest national importance.” projects. “Ruvik,” as everyone calls him, cessor, but he never expected Danilovich Since Danilovich took office in 2008 has been a visible and admired presence. to run against him. In the 2008 elections, THE JERUSALEM REPORT JANUARY 26, 2015 25 Israel Danilovich stood against his mentor and predecessor, and won 60 percent of the vote. “For many years Ruvik was in the shadow of Terner, who helped him develop and in the end he became his rival for the job,” says veteran Beersheba journalist Uri Binder. “This was hard for Terner – his protégé be- trayed him.” DANILOVICH IS still sensitive about that first win. “I really loved and admired Terner. We had a rather special relationship, and I wanted his blessing, like a father and son,” he says. Terner was also ill, a fact not widely known by the public, so Danilovich was certain he wouldn’t run for another term, and went ahead with his campaign. One of his first decisions on becoming mayor was to be sure the soon-to-be-completed huge sports com- plex, like Teddy Stadium (named for mayor Teddy Kollek) in Jerusalem, will be named for Terner. Danilovich’s key move upon being elected was to deal with the endemic cronyism and corruption for which the city was known. Terner’s predecessor Yitzhak Rager died in office in 1997 before he could be convicted of fraud and embezzlement for which he had been indicted. Terner never managed to implement the financial recovery program because of opposition from powerful inter- ested parties. Danilovich set out to clean out the stables. “Any mayor who talks about a mission needs to change the rules of the game,” he says today. “If the system he inherits is corrupt, no vision is going to help. First of all, you have to come in with clean hands, without taking an agora from anyone.” He relates that his parents took a mortgage to This meant, among other things, signing Having inherited a city that was at the pay for his campaigns. demolition orders for illegal buildings and edge of bankruptcy, he managed to effect putting an end to under the table payoffs. a fiscal reorganization that got the city out BEERSHEBA IS Threatened from several quarters, the police of debt and won it official recognition as “a provided him with around-the-clock securi- stable municipality,” no longer reliant on na- RAPIDLY ON ITS WAY ty for half a year. tional government funding. “I know I look like a kid, but I’m really Danilovich has overseen a major trans- TO BECOMING not,” the boyish-looking mayor cracks. formation of Beersheba from the backwater “When people finally understood that I long perceived as a sleepy, rundown de- THE COUNTRY’S couldn’t be pushed around, there were no velopment town – a pit stop on the way to more tricks.” Eilat – to a rapidly developing metropolis, SILICON VALLEY He set about changing the image of the with billions invested in private and public city, to realize his dream of enhancing it. He projects. “People thought I was crazy. I knew the appeared on TV promoting Beersheba as the The list of new buildings and projects is minute I was elected, a kid, only 37 years old, capital of opportunities, energetically made long and impressive, including the stunning everyone was going to test me. If I was going the rounds of every event, hired “branding” Negev Museum of Art; a state-of-the-art to get anything at all done in this city, I had consultants and strategic planners, and gath- 12,000 seat open-air theater (“Amphithe- to make sure that the government was run in ered around him many young and talented atre”); a new enclosed Central Bus Station; a straight, honest and above-board manner.” people. the Carasso Science museum; the Turkish 26 THE JERUSALEM REPORT JANUARY 26, 2015 A depiction of future development at the new Advanced Technologies Park (ATP) next to Ben-Gurion University ing prices in Beersheba have risen by an astounding 67 percent in the last few years. “We must keep the young population by improving the housing situation so that someone who wants to build a private house won’t have to move out of the city,” he says. “But in order to do this, people have to earn decent salaries, so we’ve been working on this, to bring in places of employment, cre- ate places of entertainment. We’ve had three billion shekels of investments in public proj- ects. The city has developed like crazy, and young people are finally coming here.” City Hall, where Danilovich’s office is lo- cated, is a throwback to the past – a prime example of the raw concrete architectural design known as Brutalism, for which Beer- sheba is famous. Built in the first decades of the state, those terrifying, massive struc- tures today sit alongside soaring marble and blue glass buildings, such as the courthouse and 30-story residential towers. Many of the new projects were launched long before Danilovich’s tenure, but came to fruition after he took office. “Even with those projects that are not directly con- nected to him, he’s been involved in their development, promoting them,” comments Elizabeth Homans, the local representative of the US-based Goodman Philanthropic Foundation, which has been a major funder of significant projects in the city. “He really COURTESY BEN-GURION UNIVERSITY BEN-GURION COURTESY wants to make this a city where people will stay. Maybe others have put us on the map, Train Station and Railroad Museum; the Much of the Ottoman-era Old City, which but he has made us alive.” Abraham’s Well Visitors Center; giant malls; has undergone significant gentrification Interviewed in his office, Danilovich has community centers; the multi-hall Beershe- along two of its main streets, is still fairly a tendency of slipping into slogans, speak- ba Performing Arts complex; and the soon slummy. Sanitation, particularly in the older ing in agitated declarations, as if shouting to be completed Terner sports complex, with neighborhoods, is frequently poor. through a megaphone. But out and about in a 16,000-seat soccer stadium and enclosed the city he is clearly in his element. 3,000-seat multipurpose sports hall. FOR DECADES, Beersheba suffered from “Ruvik” – whether in running shorts New parks have been created, and – in what an increasingly diminished tax base as res- and T-shirt keeping up with the crowds in was at first the butt of sarcastic jokes in this idents fled to the neighboring communities Beersheba’s Glow Run last year, or showing desert city – fountains spouting recycled wa- of Omer, Meitar and Lehavim where they up on his own at concerts in his trademark ter are now found everywhere.
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