From the Ausländerbeirat….

The meeting of the Ausländerbeirat on Monday, 17th June, 2013, was anything less than spectacular. In fact, the most interesting item on the agenda was the introduction of the new “Geschäftsführer” for the committee, Thomas Eifert, who liaises with the town hall and who also cleared up the confusion that had been circulating about how many hours he works each week for the committee.

The answer for the record: 15½ hours per week, of which 4½ are directly for the committee work, 8 for consultation appointments and 3 for work on the town’s integration concept.

Maybe with 3 hours per week over the coming months working on it, that concept may be discussed at one of the committee meetings sometime this year? The integration news this week was limited mainly to the information about the Windrose e.V. moving into the newly renovated signal box opposite the station.

It was an evening when a lot of items could be summarised as “none”. Apart from the question about the working hours, there were no questions from the public. There were no messages from the town’s executive, and no messages from the Geschäftsführer other than his introduction.

In particular a big point was made of the fact that there had been no press work carried out since the last committee meeting, the reason given being that the information to be passed on to the press had only been issued the previous Thursday after the Oberurseler Woche had gone to print.

What difference that should make considering the number of publications in the town that receive press releases from the town hall press office, or why the information was not just sent out the following week (and hence before this article was written) is a matter for speculation.

Another matter for speculation – at the moment, at least – is how much the committee has in its budget this year. Apparently no-one knows for sure, and an answer from the town’s treasury has been promised. A look inside the 1,062 page budget for 2013 shows that the work “Ausländer” comes up in several different departments, so the final figure may require quite a complex break-down.

Of course, it would not be the Ausländerbeirat without the usual reports from other committee meetings, as usual some better prepared than others, and luckily with Alderman Christof Fink on hand to explain some of the finer points.

However to be fair, two topics that will be coming up in future meetings have finally found their way into a “we need to explain that” situation. The Straßenbeitragssatzung (road repair fees) and Biotonne may not exactly be topics that only apply to foreigners in the town, but they are two systems that are likely to be introduced this year at some point and will affect all home owners. Some members of the committee at least have recognised the need to explain exactly what is going on to those who may not speak enough German to follow the information evenings on the topics.

What actions they take in this respect remains to be seen.

 

About Graham Tappenden

Graham Tappenden is a British ex-pat who first came to Oberursel in 1993 and returned with his family to live there in 2003. He has been writing for AllThingsGerman.net since 2006. When not writing blog posts or freelancing for the Oberurseler Woche he works as a self-employed IT consultant solving computer problems and designing websites. In 2016 he gained German citizenship.

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