Now it is clear: In Althegnenberg, a citizens' decision on the subject of the fire station will take place on Sunday, April 26.
Althegnenberg - The question to the citizens is then: "Are you in favor of the municipality of Althegnenberg building a joint fire fighting equipment house based in Althegnenberg for the fire brigades from Althegnenberg and Hörbach?". The local council voted in a special session with 9: 3 votes to allow the citizens' petition. Mayor Paul Dosch (BI) and the two representatives of the Hörbach village community voted against the decision.
Almost 30 listeners followed the events. Chairs had to be fetched so that all visitors had space in the boardroom. An initiator trio had collected signatures in a citizens' request to avoid the chosen location for the new fire station in Hörbach and to prevent the area from being sealed.
That says the district fire council
At the beginning, district fire chief Hubert Stefan commented on a joint fire station - there was talk of a, according to Dosch, fictitious location at the exit from Althegnenberg at the cemetery. This, according to Stefan, extends the time until the fire brigade is on site. "In the case of Hörbach even immense." He was therefore against a common house. You have to keep to the ten-minute deadline as far as possible.
Ludwig Neuner (SPD) called the numbers on which the calculation of the journey times was based "incomprehensible". It was said that all "time-critical operations" from the past had been used for the calculation. That is not the case, says Neuner: If you took all the bets, it would "look very different". Therefore, the picture is wrong and the opinion of the district fire council, according to Neuner, should not be evaluated. In addition, the aid period is shorter than the disengagement time, which cannot be multiple times.
The district fire council resisted the accusation of manipulation: "We did not deliberately calculate anything." He assured that he would check again.
A negative opinion?
Ludwig Schmid (CSU) spoke of a "negative report". Klaus Westner (BI) thought it was “brazen to talk to the district fire council about his expertise”. And Manfred Christoph (BI) accused Neuner: "So you think we don't need the Hörbach weir." Neuner: "I didn't say that." Dosch said that he "understood it that way".
Vice Mayor Rainer Spicker (BI) tried to arbitrate: “We all have to come down and talk to each other objectively. It's a tough and difficult topic. ”Neuner and Schmid both apologized for the volume of their contributions. The district fire council and Neuner want to check the stakes and the numbers together. Dosch concludes: "We need numbers that we can rely on."
When considering the admissibility of the citizens' request, the Mammendorf community had no formal legal concerns. But in the overall view - which includes the opinion of the district fire council and a court ruling (see below) - the citizens' decision could not last: The measure of a common fire brigade site could lead to "that the mandatory task is no longer possible". In other words: that the fire brigade is not quick enough on site.
According to Dosch, there are also problems with a common location in Althegnenberg: "It will be difficult." Under one and a half to two years, "nothing will work," he said, referring to changes in the land use plan and development plan, as well as the connection and creation of compensation areas.
Rainer Spicker (BI) regretted that “no consensus had been found”. He would "prefer to withdraw the decision of the local council from December 2019, but that is not possible". Looking back at the time, Schmid emphasized: "We all wanted a fire station in Hörbach, it was just about the location." Westner concluded: "Now the citizen should decide."
The Hergatz case
In the town of Hergatz (district of Lindau) with a population of 2500, the municipal council wanted to combine the two fire departments at one location. In July 2016, however, the Augsburg Administrative Court prohibited the municipality from doing so by court decision. The two fire departments, the district fire council and the district office had insisted that both weirs be preserved: So that the ten-minute emergency period can be met. The Lindau district office had finally sued and won against the municipality of Hergatz.
Information about the procedure
The Althegnenbergers were called to the ballot box again just six weeks after the local election. The referendum must not take place on March 15, because the law prohibits combining elections at local level with a referendum. Mayor Paul Dosch (until April 30th in office), deputy Klaus Kinader, is responsible for voting. In the meantime, the application for the construction of a new fire station in Hörbach, which was decided at the end of 2019, will be submitted to the district office for review.