AllThingsGerman.net: Oberursel
The latest news in English from Oberursel in the Taunus area of Germany.
Tuesday night is film night at Café Portstraße, located near the U-Bahn stop “Altstadt”.
As the organisation is not a commercial cinema, they are not allowed to advertise which film will be shown in advance. For Tuesday, 23rd October 2012, we are told that it will be “theatrical” film. If you do want to know which film will be shown then call 06171 636930 and they will tell you.
Entry costs €3 and the showing starts at 9pm.
The town’s „development process“ (STEP) finally made it to the northern end of Oberursel at the beginning of October, when around 50 people followed the invitation of the „Forum Nord“ to come to the Grundschule am Eichwäldchen to take part in a discussion about the future of the area.
The „Forum Nord“ is a collaboration between the social organisations in the area and was set up in 2005, obtaining „e.V.“ status in 2010. It currently has 17 member organisations.
After the introductions those present were asked to note down on green and red cards what they though the positive and negative aspects of the area are. These were then attached to a chart that had been split into two halves. But not equal halves. There was enough space for three columns of red cards, but only two of green ones. As such, there was not enough space for all of the cards to be attached and especially a lack of space for the green ones.
Many of the positive aspects where named over and over again, such as the closeness to the woods, the shops, the good connections to the road network and the U-Bahn, the kindergartens and the schools, the playgrounds for children up to 10 and also the fact that the area is relatively quiet.
On the negative side there were a variety of topics, such as the lack of an office from the town in the area (“Stadtteilbüro”), too many cars, things for teenagers to do, a lack of community rooms, the fact that many new houses are built very close together, the traffic situation around Frankfurt International School, too little for pensioners to do, too few child-care places, the plans to build on the area previously used by the riding centre and the increase in traffic associated with it, and finally the fact that the size of the relatively new primary school does is becoming too small for the catchment area. [Read more…]
The Seniorentreff in Oberursel will be offering an afternoon of Bingo on Thursday, 25th October, 2012 between 2.30pm and 4.30pm in the “Altes Hospital” (Hospitalstraße 9).
Anyone who is interested is invited to come along and try their luck!
On Monday, 15th October, 2012 at around 2.45pm, a 46 year old woman from Oberhöchstadt was cycling along the cycle path from the “Waldsiedlung” towards Oberursel on her mountain bike, when she noticed a man on a mountain bike approaching her from behind.
When he was level with her, he grabbed the strap of her rucksack so hard, that she fell to the ground and injured herself. The man continued to pull on the rucksack and once he had pulled it free he fled towards Stierstadt.
The man is described as follows: North African appearance, 20-25 years old, slim, 175-180cm tall, short dark hair and a long nose. He was wearing a black jacket with a hood, faded blue jeans and white trainers. His mountain bike was blue and red with large letters on the frame.
The rucksack contained over €200 in cash, ID card and a monthly RMV ticket.
Anyone who can help the police is asked to call Oberursel 06171 6240-0.
On Saturday, 13th October, 2012 at around 10.25am an 83 year old lady from Oberursel was crossing the Hohemarkstraße using the pedestrian crossing near the U-Bahn stop “Lahnstraße”.
Whilst doing so she was caught by a passing car and fell. She was slightly hurt. The car did not stop, but witnesses were able to give enough information to the police in order to trace it. It turned out that the driver at the time of the accident was also an 83 year old lady from Oberursel.
Police believe that the car went through a red light and failed to see the person on the crossing, who had green.
Oberursel’s town Kindergartens have a total of almost 10 places available for Kindergarten assistants (ErzieherInnen), with a further 9 places being created from August 2013 after new extensions have been built.
With those 10 places already approved and budgeted for, the town is almost crying out for people with the relevant qualification to apply and is even looking into incentives to make the job more attractive.
The town currently runs seven Kindergartens in addition to those run by other organisations such as charities and the churches. There are vacancies at all of them.
Details can be found on the town’s website.
Before the town’s treasurer had presented his budget speech at the council meeting last week, the FDP asked whether, in addition to the child-care costs, it was planned to raise any other charges in 2013?
The answer was yes.
It is planned to raise the annual fee to use the town’s library will from €10 to €15, generating around €11,000 extra income.
The cost of a stand at the monthly flea market in the Adenauerallee or Nassauer Straße will also rise from €15 to €17.50.
The police in Oberursel (Ordnungspolizei) carried out speed checks on the Kanonenstraße towards the Feldberg on Saturday afternoon last week (13th October).
Between 2.30pm and 4.30pm they measured the speed of 170 vehicles on a stretch of the road where a speed limit of 60km/h is in place.
12 of those measured were travelling too fast, with one motorcycle travelling at 99km/h. The driver faces a €120 fine and 3 points on their license. The fastest car was travelling at 83km/h, resulting in a fine of €30.
If you drive along the Marxstraße in Oberursel you can’t help noticing the empty classrooms at one end of the road next to the Red Cross building and just before the entrance to Rolls Royce.
These „temporary“ classrooms have now been there for just over 25 years, and have over the course of those years been home to classes from Frankfurt International School (FIS), the primary school in Oberstedten, the primary school in Bommersheim and the grammar school (Gymnasium).
But now they stand empty and at the town council meeting last week the CDU party put forward no less than two motions on what to do with them, which led into another two motions on after-school child-care places.
The first suggestion was to have the buildings checked out to see if they can offer additional after-school places until others become available. This needed very little discussion, as, apparently, there is a tradition for all parties to support motions to “check” things, so-called “Prüfanträge”. [Read more…]
At the town council meeting last week the town’s treasurer (Stadtkämmerer) , Thorsten Schorr, held what is best described as his budget speech (“Haushaltsrede”) for the coming year. Technically the budget (“Haushalt”) is not actually decided yet and will be discussed by the finance committee in their next sitting so that the council can vote on it in November, but the speech outlined where costs are increasing, where cuts will need to be made, and how the town intends to reduce their deficit by 2018.
The full version of the speech and the draft version of the budget will be available as PDF downloads on the town’s website this week, but obviously in German.
So here is a summary of the main points in English.
The speech started with the first potential saving – the members of the council and the executive will only receive printed copies of the 1060 page budget if they actually request it, otherwise they too will be receiving a PDF version. This should not be a problem, as they have all been issued with iPads, and with other official documents moving to this form as well the investment costs for the iPads will apparently be more than outweighed by the saving in printing costs.
Then came the bad news. [Read more…]
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