Referendums in Päh: crashing defeat for the community

Created: 03/13/2022Updated: 03/13/2022 21:47

The helpers had to count many votes on Sunday evening in Päh - around half of the citizens had participated in the referendums.

© Alfred Schubert

More than half of the Pähler eligible voters took part in the two referendums on the construction of the new town hall.

Around three quarters of them do not want this new building.

Pähl

- For two reasons, election workers in the parish and community center (PGZ) in Pähl and in the fire station in Fischen had expected little work.

On the one hand, the participation in the postal vote was very high, on the other hand, the spring weather was wonderful, which many citizens took advantage of to spend some time outdoors.

The hiking trails and the Ammersee were teeming with walkers and sunbathers.

At halftime – voting took place from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. – only 50 citizens had come to the PGZ and only 32 of the 2055 citizens entitled to vote had come to the fire station.

Extremely many postal votes

This would not have been enough for the quorum, even if the second half had gone just as well.

A valid result requires the votes of 20 percent of those eligible to vote, i.e. 411 citizens.

However, this was achieved by the fact that well over 1000 citizens had already cast their votes in advance by letter.

The preliminary result was finally available around 9 p.m.

In the council's request for the new building of the town hall, 325 citizens voted in favor and 934 against.

In the citizens' initiative, which was directed against the new building, 959 citizens checked that they did not want a new town hall, 285 spoke out in favor of the new building.

Since the quorum of 411 votes was reached in both referendums and the two results do not contradict each other, the result of the check-off is irrelevant.

Mayor Werner Grünbauer, who, like the majority of the municipal council, wants the new town hall that has already been decided upon, now sees no chance of implementing the project.

The conference room currently used by the school as a religion room would have to be used again for the town hall and containers would have to be set up at the school as a room extension for the all-day care required from 2026.

One alternative is to build a new school, "but then we'll be broke," says Grünbauer.

He now expects the free voters, who are rejecting the construction of the new town hall, to come up with a concrete solution to the two problems facing the community: the old town hall in need of renovation, with high energy costs and the school being too small.

It's not enough just to be against something, "you also have to say how you can do it better," says Grünbauer.

Alfred Schubert