As of: February 1, 2024, 12:52 p.m
By: Stefanie Zipfer
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Dachau needs a new artificial ice rink.
How it will be financed is currently unclear.
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So far, over 5,100 people have taken part in the petition “Ice for Dachau – Our city needs an artificial ice rink”.
But the city councilors have the final say – at the end of March.
Dachau - The decision, as it was unanimously made in the city council at the end of November, is unmistakable: As soon as the city has the money, it will demolish the old Georg Scherer hall on the ASV site and build a new hall including a parking garage.
The municipal artificial ice rink will have to make way for these new buildings - and due to a lack of money, it will not be rebuilt at a new location in the foreseeable future - the southern end of the ASV site would actually be intended for this.
For ESV Dachau and thousands of amateur ice skaters, this would be the end of their sport.
When the significance of the latest budget decisions became clear to the public, an outcry spread - in the form of an online petition "Ice for Dachau - Our city needs an artificial ice rink" by Bergkirchner teacher Sandra Gissmann.
Over 5,100 people have signed the petition since then and there are likely to be a few more in the next eight weeks - that's how long the petition is still running.
There was then a stir in politics.
In an application, the Alliance for Dachau demanded that the city now ask the other district municipalities for financial participation in the construction of a new artificial ice rink.
The Free Voters Dachau and “We” called for “immediate, concrete planning to ensure the existence of the artificial ice rink”.
The CSU suggested building the new artificial ice rink “at reduced cost” – in the form of an open ice rink, with toilets and changing rooms being housed in containers.
Only the ÜB/FDP recently tried to be realistic: in their application, the parliamentary group wrote that the new Georg Scherer Hall was the priority in any case;
A new ice surface at a new location should take place depending on the budget situation.
This “prioritization”, write the ÜB/FDP city councilors, should under no circumstances be seen as a “preliminary decision against ice sports”.
Rather, given the city's budget situation, this approach is the only one that has "a realistic chance" of ever being implemented.
The ESV itself also recently commented.
They see a return to their old plans as the only “realistic chance” of being able to continue playing their sport.
As a reminder: Seven years ago, the ESV and the Volksbank-Raiffeisenbank Dachau wanted to build an ice stadium on Wallbergstrasse on their own initiative.
The money would have been there, the mayor and the city council SPD had signaled their consent.
However, a city council majority, led by the CSU, rejected the plan.
The reasoning, summarized: The club assumes that a sports facility of this size, including the public run with thousands of users, should not be in the hands of such a small club.
The ESV is now once again offering to look for sponsors for a new ice surface.
“In our opinion, this is the only way,” ESV chairman Stefan Steurer told the local newspaper two weeks ago.
The only condition: the ESV will no longer act on its own initiative, “the order for this must come from politics”!
The city administration confirms that it is currently preparing the four existing applications from Alliance, CSU, Free Voters/We and ÜB/FDP and will - probably - present them to the city councilors at the meeting of the Main and Finance Committee on Wednesday, March 20th.
The online petition should also “become an issue in the city council in some form,” as Mayor Florian Hartmann promises.
The prerequisite, however, is that the initiator of the petition officially hands it over to the city for review.
Haberl cannot answer the question of the extent to which the ESV's offer to plan and build the ice rink on its own again will be discussed in the city council.
This is a purely political decision – which Mayor Florian Hartmann also confirms.
But he also emphasizes: Of all the ideas currently on the table to save ice sports in Dachau, the ESV's proposal is "the only one that still works to some extent."
The argument at the time that one could not hand over the power of ice time for school sports and public skating to a 350-member club like the ESV was countered by Hartmann with the sad realization: “Today it is no longer a question of whether we have to ask a club for ice time , because: We no longer have an ice age.
This is a pity.
But that is the result of the decision back then.”