Kostas Bakoyannis, head of the opposition faction Athina Psila on Athens city council, has proposed that the Municipality of Athens honour the memory of Stefanos Manos by naming a street or public space in the city after him.
Bakoyannis announced the proposal in a social media post summarising the council's most recent meeting. He wrote that there are people who leave their mark on a city, and that Manos was one of them, with a significant contribution to changes that shaped modern Athens, from the Plaka district and its pedestrianised streets to the Athens Metro. He said the faction had proposed that the city honour him with the naming of a street or a public space, an honour he believes Athens can pay united.
Bakoyannis served as Mayor of Athens from 2019 to 2023 before losing re-election, and now leads Athina Psila as the main opposition group on the city council.
Other issues raised at the meeting
In the same post, Bakoyannis said residents' problems, the needs of neighbourhoods, public spaces, safety, schools and daily life in Athens could not be left outside the municipal council's discussions.
Child protection and schools
Bakoyannis said child protection was a non-negotiable priority for his faction. He said Athina Psila had asked for proper staffing of the city's child support structure so that it could function as it should and provide the necessary support.
He said dozens of messages had reached the faction about Athens schools, citing small and larger problems that remained unresolved, ranging from electrical faults to issues with school facilities. With the school year about to begin, he said the faction had requested an update on what had been done so far and on the progress of the municipality's "neighbourhood engineer" scheme.
Road markings and street lighting
On road safety, Bakoyannis said markings had effectively disappeared from many Athens streets, including central routes. He said this was not simply a matter of the city's appearance but a question of road safety and proper maintenance, and that the faction had raised the issue, making clear it also concerned roads that fall under the responsibility of the Municipality of Athens.
He also said lighting on several streets had suffered serious faults, leaving entire areas without light for days. He cited Akadimias Street, one of the city's most central roads, which he said had been left in darkness for seven days, and called on the municipal authority to address the problem immediately.
Disability parking and neighbourhood requests
On the needs of people with disabilities, Bakoyannis said there were requests for parking spaces that met all the required conditions but had to wait six to eight months to pass through the municipal committee. He said the process needed to be made much faster, arguing that someone entitled to a parking space should not have to wait months to obtain it. He said the faction had also asked for a request from residents of Plateia Laou concerning problems in their neighbourhood to be discussed at the council's next session, so that concrete solutions could be provided.
City fountains and planning archive delays
Bakoyannis said 34 of the city's fountains had been brought back into operation during Athina Psila's time in office, with reconstructions carried out, maintenance infrastructure created and the relevant service strengthened with staff and equipment. He said several of those fountains were now out of use again, and that in many cases their condition was disappointing.
He also said there had been complaints of delays reaching or exceeding six months to retrieve a file from the microfilm archive of the city's planning department, Poleodomia. He said this could not be considered normal in 2026, and that the faction had asked for answers on the progress of digitising the department's archive.
Kazi factory and the Konistra site
On the long pending expropriation of the old Kazi factory in the Rizoupoli district, Bakoyannis said that unless the necessary steps were taken immediately, the municipality risked losing the property in January.
He also raised the case of the Konistra site in Petralona, a 14 stremma plot, roughly 14,000 square metres, that was transferred to the Municipality of Athens at no cost during his term as mayor. He said the site had since been abandoned, with serious problems of safety, cleanliness and upkeep, and called for it to be restored immediately and handed back to the residents and children of Petralona.
