A to-go food stand at the farmers’ market, a smoke-free zone in the outdoor area of the swimming pool, the expansion of the halfpipe in the amusement park to a skate park, the setting up of traffic lights, the establishment of zebra crossings for school children, a regulation for too loud leaf blowers, an equestrian facility in the The community, the construction of a secondary school, more digitization in the town hall – the wishes of the Grünwalder came from numerous areas at the citizens’ meeting on Thursday evening in the high school auditorium.
With 164 registrations and 41 motions, the citizens’ meeting this year was a record-breaking one. Last year there were only nine applications, as Mayor Jan Neusiedl (CSU) recalled at the end of the evening around 10.30 p.m. The 160 or so listeners who had come had to be prepared for a long evening, even though many of the usual items on the agenda of the citizens’ meeting had been canceled.
For example, Mayor Neusiedl had his annual address this time in the official gazette Isar indicator Have it printed, the reports from the fire brigade and police will also follow there. Neusiedl could not explain why the rush to this meeting was so great. A FDP flyer may have contributed to this. The local association had 3500 colorful invitations printed and put in the mailboxes.
The applications were gradually processed by the administrative staff gathered on the podium. Since all had to be submitted by the end of September, the administration was able to prepare answers that were read out by the respective employees. The texts were often not very short and contained a lot of information in official language. The question asked by Mayor Jan Neusiedl afterwards: “Are there any questions?” usually met with silence, so that the mayor could continue the sentence with “that is not the case” and call up the next request.
In numerous justifications from the administration it was explained why the citizen application had already been more or less settled or was at the wrong address at the municipality. For example, only the district’s farmers ‘market association can decide on a to-go food stand at the farmers’ market. There could not be another beer garden on the castle terrace due to a lack of parking spaces, the smoke-free zone would be set up, and in future there will only be designated smoking areas in the outdoor swimming pool area. The road construction authority in Freising is responsible for a desired staircase on the Dammweg, lighting on the high bank path has already been found to be not insect-friendly, the road surface in the forest path can only be renewed when all the undeveloped land has houses. The use of leaf blowers is regulated by a corresponding ordinance, but the municipality deliberately only uses quiet devices with batteries. No plot of land is free for an equestrian sports field, the establishment of a “makerspace”, a kind of workshop for all citizens in the House of Encounters, will continue to be dealt with in the administrative committee.
The community is already doing well with digitization, said Neusiedl. They have already set up 25 online procedures for dealing with authorities, soon there will be 50 and one can then call oneself a “digitized office”.
The lecture marathon was finally interrupted by FDP local chairman Michael Lehmann-Horn. “We could also vote when so many citizens have come here,” he suggested. “The citizens’ assembly could get active now, with the participation of the citizens.” Neusiedl found this unnecessary, as he had already given assurances that the topic of digitization would be dealt with in the administrative committee. Citizens’ assemblies can only vote on whether a topic should be dealt with by the municipal council. Nevertheless, the citizens were allowed to raise their hands here once.
Several other people present called for votes, for example on the idea of building a bicycle bridge over the Isar to Pullach. Since the municipal council is already dealing with this, Neusiedl also found this vote to be pointless, but nevertheless allowed it. There was also a vote on a spontaneous verbal application from Hans-Joachim Kohler, who wanted a public survey on the bicycle bridge. The majority were for it.