Dear Mayor,
Dear fellow councilors,
Dear Sir or Madam,
From today’s perspective, the budget for 2021 is difficult to assess. It is unclear, for example, the shortfall in trade tax and the extent to which these will be offset by the state’s announced payments. One thing is clear, however: the good times when we were able to put budget surpluses into reserves and repay large amounts of loans are over for the time being.
In this speech I would like to begin by addressing a few fundamental questions. In doing so, I will describe three life lies that local politics has been offering here in Saerbeck for years. It’s about the idea of creating living space for young families, about the bioenergy park and about the profitability of our communal societies.
Finally, I would like to briefly address the amendments proposed by the CDU, SPD and Alliance 90 / The Greens.
First, creating affordable housing for young families. All political groups and a large number of individual applicants took up this issue before the last local elections. But what are we going to do with the planned “Alter Reiterhof” building area? The costs for the building areas rise and rise, and so do the land prices. If, contrary to the noise protection reports available for the “Alter Reiterhof” building area, the administration claimed before the last municipal election that no noise barriers were necessary, the building area should now be surrounded on two sides by noise barriers. From our point of view, the administration is calculating completely unrealistic costs of only 200,000 euros. A geothermal local heating supply is to be set up for the construction area. The costs for this should be passed on to all properties, regardless of whether a buyer wants to use this local heating supply or not.
Only one thing is missing in the templates so far: A calculation of the effects of these additional costs on the property price. The UWG parliamentary group will therefore request that the effects of such measures on the price of the land be presented in detail for each construction planning round. We take affordable housing for young families seriously. But that doesn’t work when land prices skyrocket.
Second, the bioenergy park. Allegedly he makes a contribution to the rehabilitation of the Saerbeck municipal budget with his income. In fact, the necessary investments exceed the income of the bioenergy park many times over. The community recently had to invest over 700,000 euros in the ailing local heating network of the bioenergy park. Everyone likes to judge the relation to the approximately 100,000 EURO that the bioenergy park generates in surpluses every year. Further investments will be made in the future. With the acquisition of the ammunition depot, the municipality acquired a 40-year-old infrastructure, which is now showing an investment backlog.
Third, our municipal companies SaerVE and SGW. There the other parliamentary groups and the administration argue in a similar way to the bioenergy park. The income from the companies should make a significant contribution to the budget. But they don’t. On the contrary, one way or another the church has to keep putting money into the communal societies. For example, the municipality’s own wind turbine generates a return, but this mainly goes to the financing credit institutions because the municipality financed the wind turbine without the necessary own funds, but exclusively through loans.
All in all, we should be honest about local politics in Saerbeck. To cultivate any political lies in life, just to make up for wrong decisions from the past is not only dishonest, it also obscures the view of the solutions to the problems of the future.
Finally, a few comments on the amendments from the CDU, SPD and Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen on the 2021 budget. As I said at the beginning, these amendments do not do justice to the existing uncertainties in the budget.
The UWG will support all measures that have an investment character. This includes, for example, the financing of the planning costs for the new building at the location of the old secondary school. This new building serves to ensure the competitiveness of the comprehensive school.
The amendments proposed by the CDU, SPD and Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen describe measures that are in some cases desirable but can be postponed. The applications for redesigning the area surrounding the community center can be cited as an example. In view of the major budgetary uncertainties, such projects have to be postponed until later years. In our view, the same applies to the other amendments.
The UWG thanks the administration for the good cooperation. Overall, you are doing a very good job. Our special thanks, of course, go to the chamberlain. Not only for the work done, but also because he always has an open ear and time for our questions.
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