As of: February 28, 2024, 1:00 p.m
By: Daniel Krehl, Sebastian Grauvogl
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Schliersee's mayor Franz Schnitzenbaumer (l.) handing over the signature lists of the citizens' initiative from speaker Alexander von Schoeler (r.) to the local council.
© THOMAS PLETTENBERG
In an online video, Franz Schnitzenbaumer spoke out in favor of the new construction of the Schlierseer Hof.
A local council member therefore filed a supervisory complaint.
Schliersee
– Hits below the belt are unfortunately one of the almost unavoidable background noises in the run-up to referendums.
It is difficult to estimate how much of this will come to Schliersee before the vote to build the Schlierseer Hof.
There is a supervisory complaint against Mayor Franz Schnitzenbaumer (CSU) at the district office.
She criticizes the fact that the town hall boss publicly speaks out in favor of the project, as he did, for example, in a promotional video by the de Alwis family (we reported).
The complainant obviously doesn't like that because the municipal administration has to behave neutrally.
Their boss is the mayor, and Schnitzenbaumer emphasizes that in the town hall there is no talk in one direction or the other.
“As a person, I have to be allowed to express my opinion.” In addition to the head of administration, Schnitzenbaumer is also an elected politician who, of course, is not muzzled.
“I separate them cleanly,” says Schnitzenbaumer.
Local council member filed a complaint
Now a simple citizen may not be able to distinguish this and therefore appeal to the local authority.
However, a member of the local council submitted the complaint.
And that could definitely be defined as “below the belt.”
Schnitzenbaumer expresses himself more cautiously.
“I think that's a bit of a shame and I'm already somewhat affected.” Because that doesn't correspond to the working style of the current committee at all.
After a certain period of getting used to it, the general weather situation had settled down to clear.
The supervisory complaint initially clouds the mood a little.
Especially since one can probably expect an incumbent elected official to obtain information in advance before calling the local authority supervisory authority.
Their opinion is pretty clear, says district office press spokeswoman Sabine Kirchmair when asked by our newspaper.
On the same day that a petitioner asked the authorities via email to review Schnitzenbaumer's speech in the Schlierseer Hof video, the petition was "approved".
The result: As part of the legal supervisory review, no evidence could be found from the video “that would indicate that Mayor Schnitzenbaumer was behaving in a way that was critical or contrary to his duties.”
The head of the town hall is “not prevented from commenting on the hotel project in the local political battle of opinion and from clearly presenting his views or promoting them, as long as this is his private expression of opinion and not an expression in an official capacity”.
Municipal supervision cannot detect any breach of duty
In general, the district office is responsible as a disciplinary authority for prosecuting misconduct by mayors of district municipalities, Kirchmair explains the legal framework for such a matter.
In individual cases, however, a partial or complete transfer to the Bavarian State Attorney's Office is also possible.
In principle, any citizen can submit such a complaint within the framework of the constitutionally enshrined right to petition.
In such a case, the municipal supervisory authority asks the municipality or the first mayor to comment and then examines the matter in order to come to a final conclusion.
Depending on the severity and significance of the breach of duty, there could be consequences under civil service law, disciplinary law, salary law, criminal law and/or liability law.
Kirchmair emphasizes that things never got that far in the Schnitzenbaumer case.
Since there was no official misconduct here, the petition was unsuccessful.
Schnitzenbaumer had already presented his position on the subject of public expression of opinion to the local council when it decided on the admissibility of the citizens' initiative.
“I have a local council resolution with a vote of 14:5, which I still support.”
dak/sg