The unbelievable department layout
Just imagine you have to formulate a job advertisement and you don’t want to find a generalist, but someone with specialist expertise. Who would you be looking for if an urban developer is wanted, who if an expert for digitization can be found and who with business skills? Regional cooperation is also looking for a networker. An egg-laying woolly milk sow? Four completely different skills for a top job. These four different fields of competence are not taught in one course at any German university. Any calling can fail because of this alone.
Why is politics tearing up the Department for Urban Development, Planning and Building of the City of Cologne? So what belongs together creates additional cutting and breaking points? The new economic department that the Greens, CDU and Volt want to create is met with great misunderstanding, because the council decided to found the “KölnBusiness Wirtschaftsförderungs-GmbH” in 2018 and this started its work on February 1, 2019.
Mayor Henriette Reker said at the time: “I am delighted that the business development company I proposed can now finally start work to better position Cologne as a business location and promote it innovatively.” es: “The connection between the Wirtschaftsförderungs-GmbH and the administration is to be organized via a staff unit which is assigned to the urban development, planning and construction department and which is managed by the part-time managing director. This department for economic development is to serve as the central contact person for the GmbH within the city administration and take on a coordinating function within the administration. “After almost two years it is all wasted and failed, or why does Cologne need a head of economics again?
And digitization first: Now the city administration and the council could perhaps orientate themselves on the description of the position of a Chief Digital Officer (CDO) from the economy, if this topic is new in their own bureaucratic ranks. Anyone who looks at professional requirement profiles must accuse the council of complete ignorance, if not even dilettantism. Why didn’t the Volt boys oppose here? A CDO needs broad digital expertise, an understanding of digital ecosystems, and has an in-depth understanding of technology and a profound understanding of digital craftsmanship. Read up on this or something similar in all specialist magazines. 2 points: Does this fit in with the areas of urban development, economy and regional cooperation? Isn’t that just a full-time job facing the challenges of the digital transformation of this city administration? What topics does a lawyer with a 1st state examination and real estate economist, then a councilor of the CDU, like Kienitz, cover from the descriptions of a CDO?
And what does someone need for regional cooperation? He has to be well connected, a great communicator and motivator and invest a lot of time. Anyone who ever came up with the idea of allowing such a compilation of a department or designing it themselves, none of these topics seem important to them or they are simply naive. These are central cornerstones of the short, medium and long-term development of this city. Against the background of the climate emergency, the housing shortage or the development of a smart city.
The appointment process
There were many applicants for the job posting. Apparently, the recruitment agency also did not notice that there actually cannot be a suitable applicant for such a job description. The agency either did not advise or the customer, the city of Cologne, was resistant to advice and made the specifications. This in turn throws a questionable light on the procedure that the city administration should set up on behalf of the council in the sense of the best selection. If the council asks, the mayor should explain herself here. And citizens should be informed how much money the city administration and the council were spending on it.
The vote
Niklas Kienitz was elected by secret ballot, but Greens and Volt declared that they wanted to elect Kienitz from the CDU and did so. Despite a better conscience from loyalty to the alliance? And that although the involvement of Kienitz in the public utility affair of 2018 has been proven. This is particularly stressful for the Cologne Greens, as they had promised improvement after the public utility affair in which they were themselves involved. And here they waved someone through who was involved.
The examination and the resignation of Kienitz
Niklas Kienitz resigned before Cologne’s District President Gisela Walsken announced her decision on the procedure on July 26th. There is a hint that Cologne’s mayor Henriette Reker was informed on July 22nd, two days before Kienitz’s resignation, that the district government, as the supervisory authority, would not approve Kienitz’s appointment as a municipal electoral officer. Kienitz named personal reasons and hostility as reasons for resignation. Cologne’s Lord Mayoress in a written statement on Kienitz’s resignation: “I have to respect this decision, but I very much regret it. Niklas Kienitz would have made a very good alderman. Through his networking, his experience and many years of knowledge of urban development, he would have been an asset for the administrative board and the city of Cologne. I have already informed the city council of its decision. ”If it is true that Reker knew Walsken’s decision on July 22nd, this message from the city, which was sent by the personal spokesman for Mayor Alexander Vogel, is irritating.
And the council alliance? The CDU, Greens and Volt are not capable of a joint press release. Yet it is their department head whom they have chosen as the council alliance. The Green Group leaders around Christiane Martin and Lino Hammer want to move quickly to the agenda and stick to the department layout. While the Left, Greens, Volt and SPD proactively and separately send a press release on Kienitz’s personnel, the third largest parliamentary group in the city council, the CDU, remains passively silent. She does not send a press release, but it is her CDU man Kienitz who fails.
What does this inability to communicate to the citizens of Cologne say about this council alliance? Do the citizens of Cologne, the public, have no right to receive a statement from the political groups on these events? What does the council learn from this renewed occupation disaster, after that of the school department? The Cologne city council politicians must finally meet their responsibility to help the legally binding selection of the best, because that will bring the city forward and not Cologne clique. And they have to tailor departments so that they can even find the best for them.
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