Criticism of the number of working groups - wants to move more Change the Murnau rules of procedure

Created: 05/12/2022, 14:03

By: Roland Lory, Peter Reinbold

Place of the debates: The meeting room in the Murnau town hall.

© Lory

The Murnau municipal council is currently burdened with eight working groups.

More movement group leader Phillip Zoepf wants to curb this flood.

The CSU has sided with him on this issue.

Mayor Beuting, on the other hand, considers them to be a useful and important element in dealing with complex issues.

Murnau

– It is unclear who exactly owns the copyright for this sentence.

For years, however, it has been part of the vocabulary of politicians, who always fall back on it when it comes to insinuating that the opponent is at his wits end and resorting to the last resort in order to still achieve an acceptable result.

"If I don't know what to do anymore, I'll set up a working group," they say.

In Murnau, it seems, people often don't know what to do next.

Phillip Zoepf, parliamentary group leader of Mehr Move, lists eight working groups alone in a letter that he sent to Mayor Rolf Beuting (ÖDP/Citizens' Forum).

The topics range from "Review of the Nazi era in Murnau" to "Underground car park at the old people's fairground" to "Democracy for young people".

The flood, a ninth on the subject of mobility, heated up the minds of local politicians in the most recent municipal council meeting, prompting Zoepf to submit an application.

His goal: The rules of procedure of the market, as far as the formation of working groups is concerned, should be changed.

Future ones should only be able to be formed by municipal council resolution.

In addition, according to Zoepf, the committee should be given the opportunity to decide in individual cases

whether an additional expense allowance is to be considered.

He proposes 50 euros per attendance at a meeting.

The municipal council should decide on the payment.

A control tool

Zoepf makes one thing unmistakably clear: "It's not about the money for me." However, he sees this as a possible control element to curb the inflationary number of working groups.

"If there are additional costs on the market, the need for such a body may be reconsidered." an angry reaction.

"It's the wrong world, I wanted to put that right."

In Zoepf's opinion, the burden on local politicians has increased in the period since 2020 to an extent that is not conducive to volunteering.

"The effort is not insignificant," he says, because working group meetings sometimes have to be prepared and followed up more intensively, "since you get more information".

Smaller factions such as the Free Voters, who only have three seats in the municipal council, or SPD lone fighter Felix Burger would quickly reach their limits.

Many colleagues held other honorary posts in associations or foundations or were members of the district council.

“We all enjoy working on the local council, but it should all be kept within bounds.”

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Mayor Beuting sees working groups as an important tool.

He considers them useful for working on complex topics.

"Working groups bring people with specialist knowledge on the subject and an interest in the matter together and in a mutual exchange," he said when asked by the Tagblatt.

Beuting did not respond to questions about how he felt about the burden on the municipal councils and about an expense allowance.

But Wolfgang Küpper from the ÖDP/Bürgerforum emphasized in the municipal council: “There is no reason to complain that you have to work a lot.

That's the way it is." And Beuting pointed out the mobility concept that the committee had decided on.

"I assume that you would like to be involved."

Andrea Falkner referred to the intention

to put the whole topic on a broad footing and to discuss it with all interested parties in the necessary breadth.

This is not possible in the municipal council.

CSU joins criticism

Rudolf Utzschneider also considers a discussion of the matter to be urgently necessary.

The group leader of the CSU finds the Zoepf application good.

"We can go along with that." In 2020, Utzschneider was inferior to Beuting and Zoepf, who made it into the runoff election - with a better end for Beuting - in the fight for the mayoralty.

Those familiar with Murnau's political establishment believe that Utzschneider will make another attempt in 2026 to secure the town hall for blacks again.

For this reason he is in a permanent clinch with Beuting, on which he hardly leaves a good hair.

Indication of this: He has remodeled and tightened the saying from the working group.

With him it is: "If a mayor does nothing himself and also knows nothing, he needs many expensive reports and constantly a new working group."

The Zoepf application will be dealt with and discussed at the next meeting of the main management committee.

The meeting will take place on Monday, May 16, from 6 p.m. in the town hall.

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