Jens Marco Scherf is outraged, you can’t ignore that. He likes to take part in political and controversial discussions, writes Miltenberg’s district administrator in an Instagram post. But there are limits. And in the anonymous threatening letter that the Green politician received and published on Instagram, “I see every limit of tolerability exceeded”.
The threat against the district administrator has a banal background: in December last year, the Miltenberg district council decided to only have the residual waste bins in the Lower Franconian district collected every four weeks instead of every two weeks as before. There is resistance to this, which has now resulted in the threatening letter. “We would like to give you advance notice of our campaign, which we will be carrying out in the first hot week,” it says. And further: “In a nightly act, we, that is about 40 people, will bring you selected residual waste to your front door in Wörth and deposit it there in such a way that it is impossible for you to remove it promptly.”
Scherf writes on Instagram: “Actions in front of my family’s house or my family’s property should and must be taboo for everyone. The fact that I am now being threatened by individuals with actions in front of our house or on our property, which affects my family, is a breaking a taboo.” He calls for decency to be maintained in the discussion.
The authors of the letter call themselves an action group against extending the collection times for residual waste bins. They announce that they will inform the district administrator in advance of the place and time of the “delivery” and then invite Scherf to a discussion in a club home.
It remains to be seen whether the letter will have criminal consequences. The investigations by the public prosecutor’s office in Aschaffenburg are ongoing, and attempted coercion is a possible offense.
It’s about saving costs and reducing CO₂ emissions
In view of the resistance that culminated in the threat, the question arises: Why did the district council actually vote for a change in the collection of residual waste? The district office announced that three arguments were decisive: First, efforts are being made to save costs in order to keep fee increases for the citizens as low as possible. Secondly, one wants to reduce the logistics effort as well as vehicle and personnel requirements. And thirdly, fewer trips with residual waste saved CO₂.
So that the bins do not overflow, their size is to be doubled from July 2024 (when the new cycle starts). “The four-weekly residual waste collection is not an invention of the district of Miltenberg,” says the district office. Rather, this is already being practiced in other circles, sometimes at a greater distance. “In none of these counties was there any odor pollution or hygiene problems.” In addition, organic waste is separated from residual waste in Miltenberg, which therefore contains “almost exclusively dry waste”.
Miltenberg District Administrator Jens Marco Scherf criticized the threatening letter “because more and more people who are active in local politics are being threatened and their families are also affected”.
(Photo: private)
District administrator Jens Marco Scherf also criticizes the fact that the dispute over the collection of residual waste is taking on such forms “because more and more people who are active in local politics are being threatened and their families are also being affected”. At the beginning of March, for example, unknown persons had placed a divided pig’s head in front of the house of the mayor of the Lower Franconian municipality of Heendingen (Rhoen-Grabfeld district) and impaled another on the garden fence of his deputy. The police have not yet identified a suspect.
It was only last Friday that Frank Zeitler, mayor of the Upper Palatinate town of Nabburg (Schwandorf district), was exposed to an attack. According to the police, a 67-year-old Zeitler poured a bucket of mud in his office in the town hall. The attack was preceded by a dispute Central Bavarian newspaper according to it was about the operation of a youth camp. The operator’s lease was terminated by the city, after which he said he went to the town hall and poured faeces from the sewage treatment plant over the CSU politician. “Actually, I just wanted to dump the dirt in his office. Hitting him was an accident,” he said. The police are investigating the man on suspicion of insult, threats, property damage and attempted bodily harm.