sacking for misconduct

Created: 07/17/2022, 20:32

By: Stefanie Zipfer

Gone again: business promoter Robert Danzer.

The city council mostly followed the suggestions Competences not defined clearly enough?

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Robert Danzer was economic promoter of Dachau for just over a year.

Then the city, with the approval of the City Council, fired him for alleged misconduct.

Danzer is now resisting the dismissal, and the city is looking – once again – for a new business developer.

Dachau - "Mr. Danzer is a competent and highly committed contact person for the Dachau economy and can give important new impetus to business development." These words, pronounced personally by Mayor Florian Hartmann, are not long ago: In January 2021, Hartmann Danzer had the interested presented to the public as the new head of department for the city's economic development.

Danzer, who brought many years of experience from his work in Nuremberg's economic development department to the district capital, was supposed to finally breathe new life into the economic development department - administratively assigned to the city treasury.

As a reminder: Danzer's predecessor, Stefan Wolf, was and is on sick leave, and in the middle of the corona pandemic in spring 2020 Mayor Hartmann had to admit: We currently have no business development, "business development does not exist at the moment" (we reported).

Just like Hartmann, entrepreneurs and business associations in the city and district were looking forward to the new one.

The Chamber of Industry and Commerce, the "Dachau trades" trade association founded during Corona and the newly established start-up center association had high hopes for Danzer.

"The companies have many questions, we need a contact person," it was said at the time.

And Robert Danzer delivered straight away.

The start-up center was launched, and the city's companies came through the pandemic well overall.

When asked, economics officer Andreas Gahr (SPD) emphasized that the city council mostly followed Danzer's suggestions.

"He can't complain, we always went with him anyway."

However, Robert Danzer did not seem to want to accept the fact that department or office heads – as Gahr puts it – in the city council “sometimes get a bloody nose”.

Because of misconduct, as the mayor explains, Danzer was fired a few months ago.

Without notice.

"Things have happened that no longer allowed trusting cooperation," says Hartmann.

The mayor himself does not want to go into detail about the exact, obviously unsightly incidents in the town hall.

He does not want to and is not allowed to speak about employee appraisals in public.

It is clear that, firstly, he does not understand Danzer's behavior and, secondly, he does not tolerate it.

So you have decided "that will be terminated".

However, since this has to be confirmed by the main and finance committee in Danzer's salary level, a corresponding vote was taken in a non-public meeting.

As can be heard from the circles of participants, the topic was controversial there.

Only nine of the 15 committee members are said to have followed the city administration's request to resign, six city councilors had expressed legal concerns.

While Danzer is now defending itself under employment law against the sacking and a conciliation hearing that took place in court in the meantime had the result that the lawyers of Danzer and the city are considering an out-of-court settlement, attempts are being made in the town hall to "fill the position promptly".

The city needs someone "who is out and about, who visits companies and captures topics that move the economy," says Hartmann, describing the requirement profile for the business developer.

However, Danzer's departure shows that this job description should be formulated more precisely.

As city councilors report, he has pointed out again and again - and increasingly undiplomatically - that in Dachau the topic of economic development and economic policy is not clearly and precisely defined.

Danzer, it is said, was tired of city councilors talking to him about his work area, as he is said to have seen.

The fact that he was also subordinate to the city treasurer caused additional frustration.

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Economics officer Gahr recalls that no one ever disputed Danzer's "professional expertise".

However, he personally would never have understood why Danzer had repeatedly insisted on separating economic development and economic policy.

For him, Gahr explains, there is "no 'either or' in this question, only 'as well as'".

In his opinion, business promotion means moving something forward.

“But I can only make progress if I develop.

And for a development I need a strategy.

And then we come back to economic policy”.

City council mostly followed the suggestions

Competences not defined clearly enough?