City hall spokesman Simon Hötzl briefly interrupts the flow of his boss’s speech: “We also have a question from the chat.” What sounds like political talk on television, like audience reactions to “Hart, aber fair”, for example, has a much smaller reach. But this format is a novelty, namely the first Unterhachingen citizens’ meeting with live broadcast on the Internet. On Wednesday evening, people could not only listen from home to what Mayor Wolfgang Panzer (SPD), District Administrator Christoph Göbel (CSU) and the new head of the police station, Siegfried Graf, had to report. They could also take part directly in a question and answer session.
Unterhaching is not always so open to direct broadcasts from the culture and education center or the conference room in the town hall. At least the local council recently refused to allow online participation in the meetings in the future. The compatibility of volunteering, family and work and the possibility of improving inclusion had the CSU and the Greens in mind when they campaigned for a revision of the rules of procedure in the summer to implement hybrid meetings, but did not get the necessary two-thirds majority for this. At the citizens’ meeting on Wednesday, the mayor and administration dared to make the leap into the digital age. So not only the 50 or so viewers in the Kubiz could find out about current issues in the community and present their concerns. This also made it possible for 60 other interested parties to participate.
However, the effort involved in such a live stream should not be underestimated. A technician supervised the transmission, Hötzl kept an eye on the chat. Anyone wishing to participate online had to register beforehand. The people in the hall not only had to check the corona-related 3G evidence, but also obtain a declaration of consent because they could possibly be seen in the picture. At first he was not that enthusiastic about the broadcast, admitted Mayor Panzer after the event. He has no problem with people being able to watch his speech live on their screens at home. “But you can never completely rule out that someone won’t be recording it after all,” said Panzer. And then you never know what will be done with the material.
In the end, however, not only Hötzl and his colleagues were completely satisfied that the technology worked well. “We had test viewers, the transmission was stable,” said the city hall spokesman. Panzer also thought that everything had gone quite well. The questions that came from both the auditorium and the Internet were hardly surprising; they were the usual contributions for unexciting citizens’ assemblies: speed controls in traffic-calmed zones, zebra crossings at roundabouts, one-way traffic regulations, flood protection on the stream, greening of facades on ugly new buildings. Nothing to fear a mayor, not even online.
In the neighboring municipality of Oberhaching, Mayor Stefan Schelle (CSU) reacted negatively to a request from Claudia Schmidt-Utzmann at the latest municipal council meeting. The FDP councilor advocates a live broadcast of the citizens’ meeting on November 23rd and would have liked to discuss it. But Schelle made it clear that he had to decide for himself whether the event would go online. He referred to data protection problems, but also did not want to allow only his speech to be broadcast. Schelle believes that people should go when there is a town meeting.