Commander Eduard Klas spoke clear words at the annual general meeting of the Ottobrunn fire brigade.
He demands a say in local and traffic planning.
Ottobrunn
– Eduard Klas talks himself into a rage.
The commander of the volunteer fire brigade in Ottobrunn wants to “make a good fire brigade into a better fire brigade”, but sees the options for his troops as increasingly limited.
Growth in Ottobrunn is all well and good, but with the increasing number of residents, the capacity of volunteers is also reaching its limits.
There is nothing less than a supply bottleneck: "Every citizen is a potential emergency call candidate."
About 200 members came
It's the annual general meeting of the volunteer fire brigade in the large hall of the Wolf-Ferrari-Haus.
Three bright red emergency vehicles are parked on the town hall square, signaling from afar that the fire brigade is a proud force in the town.
Almost 200 members of the association came, 112 of them are entitled to vote (due to a quorum, discharge of the board).
Mayor Thomas Loderer (CSU), ex officio senior official and honorary member since 2017, is also there, as are his deputies Monika Modrow (CSU) and Ariane Wißmeier-Unverricht (SPD) plus some other municipal council members.
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Around 200 members of the Ottobrunn volunteer fire brigade gathered in the Wolf-Ferrari-Haus for the annual general meeting.
© Volker Camehn
It is almost impossible to meet the deadline for help in Ottobrunn
"At some point it won't work anymore," warns Klas in the direction of the municipal representative.
In fact, Ottobrunn with its 22,000 inhabitants on 5.24 square kilometers is extremely densely populated.
It gets backed up there, for example in Robert-Koch-Strasse.
According to Klas, the bus stops and traffic islands created nothing less than a "bottleneck for the fire brigade".
After receiving an emergency call, it is almost impossible to be at the scene within the specified “help period” (ten minutes).
His urgent appeal to the town hall: talk to the fire brigade about it early on in the run-up to structural densification and traffic planning.
Mayor asks for your understanding
However, City Hall boss Loderer asks for understanding for his traffic policy: "Without buses, even more cars would clog the streets", it is important to prevent traffic jams and curb the increase in private transport.
This includes, among other things, accessibility at bus stops, which are now associated with conversion work.
Even if the bottom line is that only a few people would benefit from this, "we also have a duty to look at these few citizens," says Loderer.
part of community life
However, the obligation of an annual general meeting also includes a little statistics: With 216 members, there are currently twelve more than in 2021, 852 assignments (or 58 more than 2021) the volunteers drove last year.
In retrospect, club chairman Klaus Ortmeier is happily self-confident, after the corona-related interruption of events, which put a heavy financial burden on the club, which is why the result for 2022 was only a minimal surplus (319.86 euros), numerous events could be held again: In addition to the For decades, the "open day" in the equipment house for the Ottostrasse festival and the stand at the Christmas market took place the South Tyrolean open-air wine festival (this year on 15.
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Honours: (from left) Gerhard Deiler, Sebastian Fehr, Jürgen Remke, Karl-Heinz Vogel, Bernd Müller (all 40 years old) and Erwin Ettl (50 years old).
Club Chairman Klaus Ortmeier (2nd from right) and Deputy Commander Manuel Aulenbach (right) congratulated.
© Volker Camehn
And honor where honor is due: And in addition to numerous awards, there will also be a premiere on this evening: For the first time in the history of the Ottobrunn fire brigade, there will be an honor for 50 years of active service.
This goes to Erwin Ettl.
This was made possible by raising the age limit for deployment to 65.
So there's still something going on.