Referendum hospital: misguided information letter for all voters

Created: 11/29/2022, 08:00

By: Elke Robert

The Action Alliance Pro Hospital Schongau is fighting to fully maintain the Schongauer Klinikum.

© Hans-Helmut Herold

"A supergau to the power of three." This is reported by the spokesman for the Weilheim-Schongau district office.

The mailings before the hospital referendum on Sunday were misdirected and ended up in the Tölz-Wolfratshausen district.

Reason: "Human error".

Schongau – For days people in the Weilheim-Schongau district have been waiting for the direct mail for the referendum on Sunday, December 4th, to finally arrive.

At the request of our newspaper, the district office said on Thursday that this should be distributed by the beginning of this week at the latest.

According to the principle of parity, both the action alliance "Pro Hospital Schongau" and the district council should be given equal space to explain the arguments for a "yes" or "no" in the referendum on the central hospital again.

All citizens from the district of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen received mail, but citizens from the district of Weilheim-Schongau did not

Since Friday, citizens from the district of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen have been reporting to Daniela Puzzovio, spokeswoman for the "Pro Hospital Schongau" action alliance, and reported that they had received mail.

Whether it was Bad Heilbrunn or Sachsenkam – there citizens had the information for voting in their mailboxes, but the local mailboxes remained empty.

How can that be?

Citizens from the neighboring district also reported to the district office in Weilheim.

By yesterday, Monday at the latest, it was clear that something had gone wrong.

An employee made a mistake

"The direct mail was misdirected," said Hans Rehbehn, spokesman for the district office.

An attempt was immediately made to reconstruct the process.

And he also found the reason: an employee of the service provider commissioned with the printing simply made a mistake.

"It's terribly embarrassing for the service provider," says Rehbehn.

"There was a human error," explains the site manager of the service provider, who pleads not to be named, "there are jobs involved".

At the same time as the print order, the bulk mail would also be registered directly on the computer via a manager - to which households in which district the mailing should go.

This mask was apparently filled out incorrectly.

"Because after that more or less everything runs automatically, nobody noticed it anymore."

"The district administrator is not very pleased"

And so the pallet with the information on the referendum was picked up by the post office as agreed, but ended up in the wrong post office.

"And of course the citizens of the district of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen are still not allowed to vote," says the site manager.

The service provider expects damage of between 8,000 and 9,000 euros, not to mention a possible loss of image, since the importance of this direct mail is well known.

"The district administrator is not very pleased," says Rehbehn.

Yesterday, people immediately thought about how to reach those citizens who have not yet filled out the postal voting documents and want to go to the ballot box in person.

It's getting too tight for a new attempt at direct mail.

It cannot be guaranteed that the information will arrive in time.

Now the special official journal, which appeared online on November 11 and in the Kreisbote, Gelben Blatt and Lechkurier on November 16, is also to be published in the local newspaper on Wednesday.

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"That will not reach all citizens," criticizes the action alliance

"That will not reach all citizens," criticizes Puzzovio and is more than disappointed.

"Of course, mistakes happen, but that is against the will of the citizens and the district councils." And she criticizes that it took so long with the direct mail.

The decision of the district councils was made on October 28th, and the text was submitted on November 9th.

At least the hitherto undecided citizens should be reached with the direct mail.

The arguments for a "yes" and a "no" were asked of both the action alliance "Pro Hospital Schongau" and the hospital GmbH.

Read here the interview with Schongau's Deputy Mayor Daniela Puzzovio and Regina Haugg (both action alliance) and on the other side the interview with District Administrator Andrea Jochner-Weiß and GmbH Managing Director Thomas Lippmann

By the way: everything from the region is also available in our regular Schongau newsletter.

And in our Weilheim-Penzberg newsletter.

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