The Neubiberger apparently like to participate directly in local political events. Over the past few months, more than 600 of them have voted on more than 100 theses on local issues using Democy’s citizen participation app. That’s about 4.3 percent of the population, which according to Julius Klingenmaier, managing director and founder of Democy, is a good result in the current phase, as he told the municipal council when the results were presented. Despite the successful start – the municipality has been using the app since November 2021 – some municipal councilors had requests for improvement, for example with regard to the formulation of the theses.
In the app, citizens can vote on questions that the administration has worked out and on those that come from citizens. In this way, the community gets a picture of the mood that moves people. Theses that achieve a two-thirds majority are returned to the respective offices and they comment on them. Questions and statements can be found on the community website. Around 77 percent of those voting voted for the Hachinger Bach to be renatured and 70 percent for the cycling infrastructure to be actively expanded. According to Mayor Thomas Pardeller (CSU), there were very few theses that could not be accepted, for example because they did not affect the community.
FW councilor Knopp would like explanations for the individual theses
However, some councilors saw room for improvement. Jürgen Knopp (Free Voters) suggested that explanations of the theses would be helpful. Klingenmaier pointed out the possibility of an info button, but pointed out that this would mean additional administrative work. Lucia Kott (Greens) suggested including the speakers to avoid misunderstandings. Specifically, she referred to the thesis that the municipality should regulate the design of the front gardens more uniformly, which was denied by 70 percent of those who voted.
However, the municipal council has already decided to regulate this by means of a statute. Pardeller admitted that this thesis was “possibly a bit unfortunate”. Overall, however, he spoke out in favor of changing as little as possible in the questions and allowing a lot. In addition, the administration comments on the theses in the second step. He promised that the suggestions from the panel would be examined.