Wettingen has the municipal code in place since 2003 and the old business regulations of the residents’ council completely renewed. Both proposals will be discussed on November 19 in the residents’ council. The new municipal code would bring some innovations: In future, the people should only be able to vote on budgets if a tax rate change is pending.
In addition, those entitled to vote at the ballot box should no longer be able to automatically determine loans that amount to more than four million francs. The municipal council is sticking to the latter change – although the non-partisan accompanying commission would have liked to keep the point in the municipal code. The local council, which wanted to cancel votes on the budget entirely, agreed with the proposal to at least let the people judge changes in the tax rate. “This is how other municipalities with residents’ councils, such as Baden and Obersiggenthal, also handle it,” added Mayor Roland Kuster (CVP) to Tuesday’s media briefing.
Abolishing the mandatory referendum had already been proposed in the new municipal code before this year’s referendum on the 2020 budget. In February, 73 percent of those entitled to vote – with a turnout of 50 percent – clearly rejected the 2020 budget, including the tax rate increase.
Leaner municipal regulations, more precise regulations
With the new municipal code, the municipal council wants to strengthen the backing of parliament: “The residents’ council should exercise its competencies and, as the elected representatives of those entitled to vote, assess various issues almost conclusively,” emphasized Kuster. This includes, among other things, that the residents’ council could decide on all loan applications alone – subject to the optional referendum. To do this, it requires the signatures of ten percent of the electorate within 30 days of a resolution.
The new order is also leaner: where there are 45 paragraphs today, there would now only be 14. In return, the business regulations of the residents’ council would be more extensive because the current ones are imprecise or incomplete. Only the parliament decides on this, however, on the municipal code also the people – probably on March 7, 2021. The changes would take effect on June 1, 2021.
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