The city of Füssen is suing its former mayor, Paul Iacob

Created: 01/28/2022, 18:55

By: Matthias Matz

Füssen's ex-mayor Paul Iacob is again facing legal trouble.

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Füssen - The city of Füssen is suing its former mayor Paul Iacob (SPD) for reimbursement of expense allowances.

But their chances are slim.

The legal processing of the era of ex-mayor Paul Iacob continues: According to information from the district messenger, the city has filed a lawsuit against the former SPD head of town hall at the Augsburg Administrative Court for repayment of over 100,000 euros. The money relates to expense allowances that Iacob received for his work as a member of the supervisory board and as deputy managing director and managing director of the Schwangau Tegelbergbahn.

In the opinion of the Bavarian Municipal Audit Association (BKPV) and the Füssen city parliament, however, Iacob should have paid at least part of these expense allowances to the city treasury.

Therefore, according to information from our newspaper, the committee decided by a large majority in its last meeting before Christmas in the non-public part to file a claim for repayment with the competent administrative court in Augsburg, as several participants confirm.

However, even the city's lawyers would have advised against the lawsuit, as they see little chance of success, it is said.

Because apparently there was no city council decision in the past that would have obliged Jacob to do so.

City Hall has not yet commented on the matter.

Speaking to our newspaper on Friday, Iacob, who served as the city's mayor from 2008 to 2020, confirmed that he received the complaint from the court on Thursday.

He denies the allegations.

Since the Tegelbergbahn is not a municipal company, he was not obliged to pay his expense allowance, he explained.

He did not provide any information on specific amounts.

Diverse tasks

According to its own information, from 2008 to 2016 the Social Democrat was mayor of one of the three municipalities that have shares in the Tegelbergbahn, according to the statutes not only a member of the supervisory board of the railway, but also deputy managing director.

After the death of the then managing director, he also temporarily took over the management of the railway in 2016.

According to his own statement, he received an expense allowance for all three activities.

However, this is by no means unusual.

On the contrary.

The administrative and supervisory boards of numerous municipal companies in the Allgäu, such as the Klinikverbund Ostallgäu-Kaufbeuren or the Sparkasse Allgäu, are also occupied by district administrators, mayors and local politicians, who receive money for this, so-called expense allowances.

According to municipal regulations, however, politicians are obliged to transfer this additional income to the city or municipal coffers up to a certain amount.

They can keep the rest.

Jacob denies allegations

Iacob explained to our newspaper that Tegelbergbahn GmbH & Co. KG, despite the three communities of Füssen, Schwangau and Halblech as shareholders, is not a municipal company but a private company.

He was therefore not obliged to pay the money to the city of Füssen.

When he took office in 2008, neither the employees of the city administration nor the supervisory board of the Tegelbergbahn pointed out to him that he had to transfer part of his expense allowances from the railway to the city treasury, he emphasized.

Neither did any of his predecessors.

"It's always been done that way," said the former mayor.

In addition, there was no resolution in the constitutive meeting of the city council, in which decisions were made on, among other things, the salary, the company car or the amount of the additional income of a mayor, which obliged him to do so.

In short: he is not aware of any guilt, according to Jacob, who now wants to get legal advice himself.

Incidentally, this is not the first legal trouble for Jacob since he gave up his post as mayor.

It was not until the end of 2020 that the public prosecutor's office dropped proceedings against him on suspicion of breach of trust in connection with the rental of the former district office on Augsburger Straße.