Echoing's mayor Sebastian Thaler has apparently settled the costs of his lengthy process via the town hall.
Not everyone likes that.
Eching
- The lengthy legal dispute between the Mayor of Echingen, Sebastian Thaler, after an incident at Lake Echinger in the summer of 2018 has apparently caused a deep crack across the council.
Controversial point: the apparently taking over of court and legal costs by the municipality of Eching - possibly also the background of the search of the Echingen town hall by the public prosecutor's office last week.
Voting in the local council
In a vote in the local council last year, the question was whether Thaler had acted as mayor or as a private person in the incident in which he had clashed with a car driver at Echinger See. Free voters, the CSU and the FDP are said to have taken the view that the subsequent court feud was a purely private matter. They therefore advocated that Thaler should pay the costs out of pocket.
The other side - SPD, Greens, citizens for Eching, ÖDP and Echinger Mitte - had a different opinion: Thaler had acted in the exercise of his mayor's office.
Ergo, the community bears the costs.
The majority of the Pro-Thaler group prevailed.
According to reports, this position is backed up by an expert opinion that has confirmed that it is legal to assume the court costs in this case.
For the FPD councilor Heinz Müller-Saala, the assumption of costs is "not lawful".
The result of the roll-call vote in the non-public part of the meeting annoys him enormously.
Müller-Saala: “The legal dispute was a purely private matter for the mayor.
He probably thought he was always in office.
That's not the case."
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Mayor Sebastian Thaler was apparently allowed to settle his court costs after a council decision on the community.
© Lehmann
What amount is it actually about?
But what sums are we talking about?
What was the cost of the legal battle that dragged on for years?
In March of this year, Müller-Saala wanted to receive information about the “total expenditure of the municipal treasury” in an application to the municipality and also demanded “inspection of the files”.
"I just wanted to know what money and how much has already flowed," said the veteran FDP man.
"But my proposal never made it onto the agenda of a meeting." Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether it is 10,000 or 20,000 euros, says Müller-Saala.
100 euros are also too much “if the mayor uses the cash register,” as he puts it.
He assumes that the search of the Echingen town hall a week ago is related to the court costs.
The mayor does not want to comment
How the assumption of costs will be judged by the municipality remains to be seen.
Thaler can at least point out that with the assumption of the costs by the town hall, only a majority decision of the Echingen municipal council was carried out.
The councils, on the other hand, would be off the hook thanks to the report: According to the Bavarian municipal code, they are only liable if they pass resolutions against their better judgment - which would not then be the case.
The Landshut public prosecutor's office is investigating Sebastian Thaler for "infidelity" and is currently viewing seized documents, as the deputy press spokeswoman Eva-Maria Büttner announced on request.
At the present time, Büttner did not want to confirm whether the disputed court costs of the head of the community are the subject of the investigation.
The main character, Sebastian Thaler, could only be reached for a statement after many attempts.
The mayor of Echingen asked for your understanding, however, not to provide any information and to wait for the result of the investigation.
It is a pending case.
Thaler: “We gave the public prosecutor all the documents that they wanted.
I can't say more at the moment. "
Tough court feud
In August 2018, Mayor Sebastian Thaler ran into a car driver at Echinger See. Thaler cycled in front of the SUV and gesticulated to the man behind the wheel and made it clear that he was not allowed to drive his car here. What happened in the following dispute has not yet been fully clarified. The driver admitted to having packed Thaler at the "Krawattl". But he deliberately rammed his bike into the side of the SUV. A complicated legal dispute ensued: the public prosecutor's office initially discontinued the proceedings that Thaler had brought against the driver. Then the motorist filed a civil lawsuit for damages. This was followed by a "counterclaim" by Thalers. Eventually it came to trial. The verdict: Thaler had to pay for damage to the SUV and legal fees, around 4,000 euros.The driver, on the other hand, had to replace Thaler's polo shirt (50 euros). The judge saw the guilt primarily in Thaler. In an interview with the Freisinger Tagblatt in July 2020, he judged the outcome of the proceedings as "annoying because it costs me a lot of money".
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