The BfW, CSU and Greens are now equally strong on the committees of the Weilheim city council: they each have two representatives. SPD and ÖDP each got one seat. On the other hand, the free voters went away empty-handed, although they represent as many city councils as ÖDP and SPD.
Weilheim - "Hare-Niemeyer" is the name of the complicated procedure according to which the distribution of seats in the city council committees is calculated. According to this, the Free Voters (FW) would actually have a seat in each of the five larger, quite important sub-committees of the Council: in the main, in the construction, in the traffic, in the climate and in the concession committee. Nevertheless, the FW go away empty-handed. After "Hare-Niemeyer", the BfW (which has eight council members), the CSU / FDP (which have recently formed a parliamentary group, thus having seven plus one city council seat) and the Greens (six seats) each have two representatives on the committees mentioned. The groups with two city council seats - i.e. SPD, ÖDP and FW - would each be given a seat. But that would result in a total of nine representatives - but there are only eight places. This is why the number of votes comes into play when it comes to the award: Because the SPD and ÖDP received more votes than the FW in the city council election, the latter are left out in terms of “committee”.
By the way: Ultimately, the BfW have one vote more than the CSU and Greens in the main, construction, transport and climate committees. Mayor Markus Loth (BfW) is the chairman and thus the ninth voting member of these committees.
The climate committee is only preparing
The climate committee is new among all the committees: it was provisionally introduced in January following a citizens' application to declare the climate emergency - signed by 570 Weilheimers; now he is officially in the rules of procedure. In contrast to the Building, Main and Transport Committee, which also decides on some matters, it is basically only advisory. His duties include the creation of a climate protection concept for Weilheim, the establishment of energy controlling for urban buildings and the development of new climate protection projects. The ÖDP has already made amendments to the organization of the climate committee. They will be discussed in its next meeting.
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In contrast, Weilheim's new city council refused to set up a so-called vacation committee - after it was discussed in detail in the constituent meeting in front of around 30 interested listeners. A vacation committee - as recently introduced by the district council - can be convened to make urgent decisions during the non-meeting time during the summer school holidays. Where there is such a body (to which only a part of the council members belong), it was recently often used in the Corona crisis - for example because the entire council was unable to meet due to the rules on distance.
No to the vacation committee
For example, while CSU parliamentary group spokeswoman Marion Lunz-Schmieder campaigned for a vacation committee (which is more democratic than if the top of the city decides alone in certain cases), city councils from different groups spoke out against it: because not all groups could be represented on this committee, this corresponds not their democratic understanding, said Susann Enders (FW). In the end, only seven councilors voted for the holiday committee (Lunz-Schmieder, Angelika Flock, Johannes Langer, Stefan Zirngibl, Brigitte Gronau, Manuel Neulinger and Mayor Loth) - 24 voted against.
What is new in the rules of procedure is that requests from city councils must now be processed within three months. Only Ullrich Klinkicht (“Weilheim Miteinander”) was in favor of sticking to the previous two-month period. But sometimes it just takes longer for everything necessary to be clarified with specialist authorities, argued City Hall chief Loth. In principle, every request is put on the agenda "as soon as possible".
Sessions will start earlier
When the new city council was constituted, the decision about when its meetings should begin in the future was tight. 14 members were in favor of staying at 7:00 p.m. But 17 voted for 6.30 p.m. - and prevailed.
