Ratsstuben referendum Feldafing: Suddenly compromises appear

Fire station construction or inn maintenance?

The well-attended panel discussion on the referendum on the future of the council chambers in Feldafing on Wednesday evening showed that both might even be possible in the future.

Away from the podium, things were sometimes highly emotional – but also constructive.

Feldafing – It was 8.16 p.m. when it first became apparent that it would not only be a contentious, but also a constructive evening.

The first part of the panel discussion on the future of the council chambers and the Makarska-Grill restaurant in Feldafing was over, it was the turn of the citizens to ask their questions.

Around 60 people sat down at the beer tables in the town hall on Wednesday evening to get arguments before the referendum.

On Sunday, October 16, the people of Feldafinger will vote on whether the new fire station should be built on Possenhofener Strasse - or whether the council chambers and thus an important meeting place for clubs and citizens should be retained.

But why either, right?

How about a citizens' meeting in the new fire station?

After this suggestion from the audience, Mayor Bernhard Sontheim said at 8:16 p.m.: “I can well imagine creating space for the old shooters – in the basement or on the floor above.” Later there was also the suggestion to create an inn above the fire brigade .

Also an idea against which neither Sontheim nor the local councilors present objected.

But before such projects can really be discussed, the referendum has to be held.

After that, the municipality can either push ahead with the planning – or, if there is a majority for the pro-Makarska request, do nothing at all with and on the property for a year.

Mayor: No new opportunities through citizens' petitions

Sontheim sat on the podium with Günter Rusche, co-initiator of the citizens' initiative with Reinhard Anklam, who was unable to attend due to illness.

Peter Schiebel, editor-in-chief of Starnberger Merkur, moderated and wanted to know from Sontheim what would happen after a year if the citizens' initiative was successful.

The mayor did not say that the community was planning to continue after that (even if he had been asked to do so by the partly angry audience: "Sog's hoid").

But he could imagine "that the municipal council sticks to its decision".

Because: "The citizens' initiative does not open up any new possibilities."

When the Makarska landlord received the notice from the municipality, he told Sontheim that he would have stopped in the next two or three years anyway.

The municipality would have to invest an estimated 700,000 euros to completely refurbish the building.

"We don't have this money," Sontheim said loudly, referring to other important projects: the renovation of the gymnasium, participation in the Tutzing middle school in the millions and of course the need for a fire station.

Nobody in the room disputed that – not even Günther Rusche.

His first sentence of the evening was: "We didn't start the request to prevent the fire station.

We are only interested in the location.” He himself favors the Lippwiese, which the majority of the municipal council rejects, however: access through the narrow access road is difficult and the location in a residential area.

Rusche repeatedly emphasized the time factor.

"An association that hasn't had a home for several years no longer exists afterwards." And he pointed out that not only the council chambers, but also the lido (because of the renovation) and the Hotel Kaiserin Elisabeth (because of the temporary use by Siemens) will no longer be used as gastronomy in the next few years.

Angry voices from the rows of visitors agreed with him.

The tenor: Why should visitors still come to Feldafing at all,

Fire brigade commander: community "got into the slippers" late

Rusche also criticized: "You can't say that there is no money if something is to be built later for tens of millions." An allusion to several half-baked ideas to create a new home for clubs.

Mayor Sontheim brought temporary solutions into play (Café Rosalie, Kulturkeller) and suggested storage space for club equipment (basement of the old fire station).

Fire brigade commander Dirk Schiecke, who was available to answer questions and contributed a lot to the constructive exchange, remarked: "The talks have been going on for much longer than they have been since 2017 - only then did the community get going." Rudolf Spöttl, member of seven Feldafinger clubs, spoke to many from the heart.

He accused the community of having paid too little attention to the clubs for too long: "If we had been taken on board earlier, it might not have gotten that far." But now the Feldafinger have to make a decision on October 16th: Construction of the fire station or preservation of the council chambers?