It wasn’t that long ago when it looked as if there wasn’t a piece of paper between them: Thomas Michalka and Johann Hiltmair sat side by side in the Grasbrunn municipal council until the 2020 local elections. For six years the two represented the “Citizens for Grasbrunn” (BFG) on the 20-member council, a group which, according to its own statement, is “completely independent of any party rationale and interests of third parties” and “committed to the common good without any ifs or buts”. After losing votes in the election a year and a half ago, only Michalka was left. That was already a low point for the electoral group, who even sat three times on the committee after their first entry into the municipal council in 2008. But recently she is no longer represented on the municipal council. Or does it?
Deposed and kicked out: the previous chairman of the “Citizens for Grasbrunn”, Thomas Michalka.
(Photo: Angelika Bardehle)
It’s complicated, anyway. A few days ago, Johann Hiltmair, the deputy chairman and former municipal councilor, announced that the members of the BFG had removed their chairman Thomas Michalka. And not only that: you would also have excluded him from the electoral group by unanimous vote. Until further notice, he, Hiltmair, leads the BFG provisionally.
One could only speculate about the reasons. In a statement by the remaining BFG board, there was only talk of “long-lasting irreconcilable differences” and of “violations of the association’s statutes”. With a few days after the general meeting, Hiltmair is ready to say more on the phone about the expulsion of his former political companion. And what he says paints a picture of a local politician who is apparently not only more and more withdrawn from his former comrades-in-arms, but who has also slipped the reins of running the association.
If one follows Hiltmair, then Michalka, as chairman of the citizens for Grasbrunn, has apparently not called a general meeting for years, although he would have been obliged to do so according to the association’s statutes. An annual report was also no longer submitted, nor were annual accounts, so it was not known how many paying members the association had, nor what had happened to their membership fees. Michalka always eluded debates with different reasons. Since the local elections a year and a half ago, the members have lost all contact with their chairman.
Johann Hiltmair is the second chairman of the citizens for Grasbrunn (BFG) and, in his own opinion, is currently also acting chairman.
(Photo: private)
“What do you want with a chairman like that?” Says Hiltmair. And: “At some point it will be enough.” The other board members had finally called a general meeting, to which they also quoted their chairman. But Michalka did not appear – unexcused, as Hiltmair is important to emphasize. Michalka sent emails at exactly the time when the other BFG members were sitting together, nominated a provisional chairman and entrusted the preparation of a new board election for 2022. “You have known someone for 15 years and then you just shake your head,” says Hiltmair of his former political companion.
After all, he was even a candidate for mayor of the BFG. Can it all really be? So call Michalka. As expected, he describes everything completely differently: The general meeting, his voting out and his expulsion were all illegal. According to the association’s statutes, only the board of directors may convene a meeting in its entirety, and only the board of directors can decide on the exclusion of a member, but not the general meeting. For Michalka it is therefore clear: “The status quo is clear: I am still a member and first chairman of the citizens for Grasbrunn and according to the statutes only the authorized representative to the outside world.”
“If that was my failure, as Mr Hiltmair accuses me, then it was his failure too.”
Michalka does not deny that he was less strict about the association’s statutes in other respects. The last general meeting at which he was confirmed as chairman apparently took place in 2015, which means that Michalka’s official term of office has expired four years ago. No annual accounts have been drawn up since then. Michalka apologizes with private overload as well as a lack of commitment on the part of the rest of the board and the recent contact restrictions due to the corona pandemic. “If that was my failure, as Mr Hiltmair accuses me, then it was his failure too.”
Michalka accuses his former companion of wanting to push him out for a long time. Hiltmair had already scheduled an extraordinary meeting for this purpose in the summer. He suspects that the motive is disappointment with the outcome of the election and the loss of his own mandate. “He had the idea of being able to steer me from the background, so to speak.” But Michalka went her own way in the local council, for example by joining a committee with Sven Blaukat from the FDP – obviously to the displeasure of others in the BFG. But how do the BFG write about themselves again? One is “independent of any party arguments”.
Unsurprisingly, Hiltmair contradicts Michalka’s assumptions. It is he who no longer represents the “core issues” of the group. The BFG had once founded in protest against a golf course planned near Möschenfeld and always saw themselves as fighters for the preservation and preservation of the townscape and the community. But the “political differences” are secondary, so Hiltmair.
The question is how to proceed now. Hiltmair and his followers, including founding member Axel Bornheimer, asked Michalka to stop speaking on behalf of the BFG. And informed the town hall that it no longer represents the BFG in the local council. Michalka, his former political friends demand, should also give back his mandate so that one of them can move up. This rejects this resolutely.
Rather, Michalka announces that she wants to hold a general meeting – “as soon as Corona allows it”. Then he would consider what consequences he would draw. Should the majority follow his opponent Hiltmair, “then I will consider resigning”. It is not difficult for him after all the years that he has been a member of the BFG. “You won’t move anything with the troops anyway.”
Whatever the outcome of the power struggle, the BFG should no longer be a member of the committee anyway 13 years after their first move to the municipal council.