On September 18, Piotr Roman wrote on his official profile (and the post was repeated on the city profile) that the new investment—the swimming pools on Spacerowa Street—and the skatepark had not been flooded. This seemingly neutral piece of information unexpectedly resulted in a wave of criticism of the mayor and his actions during the flood.

What upset people? The impersonal information about the pools that had “defended themselves.”

Beata summed it up as follows: The text says that the pools defended themselves, while I thought people had fought together by laying sandbags.

The strongest comment under the post, which was probably deleted because we cannot find it now, was written by Ms. Agnieszka:

How dare you brag about this. People were filling sandbags, while you and your wife were taking pictures as if they were animals in a zoo. Yesterday, the voivodeship marshal was swinging a shovel together with the people, while you—what? The guys at ZEC spent 16 hours packing nearly 2,000 bags as volunteers, convinced that they were helping save people's homes, only to find out that the not-yet-built pools were supposed to be surrounded with those bags. My husband personally threw down his shovel and said that if he had known you would be using this for self-promotion, he would not have lifted a finger. There was zero coordination; the numbers provided as contact numbers for the emergency headquarters did not work. Preserve at least what remains of your honor and sprinkle ashes on your head. I know this is your final term and you clearly do not care about anything, but promoting yourself on people's misery is disgusting, and people will remember this.

Bolesławiec residents—women and men—are mainly criticizing the mayor because they did not feel his support during the difficult moments of the flood.

Karolina put it this way in a post on the mayor's profile: With all due respect, but where were you, Mr. Mayor? People were doing everything they could to save themselves and others. The people of Bolesławiec wonderfully united in this entire tragedy; it was beautiful. Bravo, Bolesławiec.

People who stood on the flood embankments write bitterly that nobody from “this ruling circus” even came to ask whether they needed help. A meme illustrating the city authorities pretending to help citizens also appeared in the comments. In the meme, several people are pushing a broken delivery van, while another person is “helping” by standing on the vehicle. This is supposedly how officials and the mayor were helping.

Harsher words also appear in the comments, such as “shut up, ignoramus” and “your dubious dignity was swept away by the river.”

The posts also raised the issue of paid parking during the flood. One commenter wrote that Bolesławiec residents helped save the Bolesławiec wastewater treatment plant from flooding, while someone else received a parking ticket because their parking card had expired. There was also an appeal to make city parking available free of charge to those affected by the flood so they could handle urgent official matters.

The mayor did not respond to any of these comments. He does not engage with internet users.

We will officially ask spokesperson Agnieszka Gergont what the mayor's position is on deploying forces and resources to protect the pools while homes on Spacerowa Street were being saved at the same time. We will also ask whether he intends to make parking in Bolesławiec free of charge for some time for people from the municipality and city who were affected by the flood.

If we receive such a response, we will publish it.