Green Party wants to abolish coffin requirement

March 21, 2013 By Leave a Comment

At tonight’s meeting of the town council the Green Party in Oberursel will be putting forward a motion to abolish the requirement for bodies to be put into coffins before they are either buried or cremated.

The motion will also ask for the town the find out whether it is possible to offer burials in accordance with the Muslim burial tradition at one or more of the cemeteries in the town.

“Death is a part of life and a community should make it possible for both the deceased and the next of kin to grieve according to their own moral concepts”, Councillor Lars Stockmann explained.  The party is of the opinion, that in a pluralistic society with different religions that these different concepts should also be considered in the funeral options available. [Read more…]

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Once upon a time, there was a sports field…

March 7, 2013 By Leave a Comment

… and that field was one of the most discussed topics in Oberursel.

In fact, it was one of the decisive issues the last time the town council was elected, when the CDU and FDP were in favour of selling it to fund the new swimming pool, SPD, the Green party and OBG were against doing so.

How fast the parties can change their position became apparent last year, when the SPD and Green party sided with the CDU in a vote on the funding of the swimming pool project with a clause stating that the sports field would be sold if an alternative could not be found by the middle of 2013. [Read more…]

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Kiosk petition fails to collect enough signatures for a referendum

January 18, 2013 By Leave a Comment

A petition to hold a referendum on the future of the kiosk at Oberursel’s main station has failed to collect the required number of signatures.  The kiosk had closed in the middle of December and was removed early in the new year.

The “Bürgerbegehren” required 10% of those living in the town and eligible to vote  to sign with their full name, address and date of birth.  The deadline ran out yesterday: Thursday, 17th January, 2013, when one of the organisers of the petition, Angela Stohrer, submitted the 189 pages to the town hall.  It was 8 weeks to the day since the town council had rejected a motion by Ingmar Schlegel of “die Linke” to stop the kiosk’s closure.

However, many of those who had downloaded the petition from the internet and printed it off had often not filled out all of the columns on the form, especially the date of birth, making their voting status difficult to confirm for the town hall and thus invalid. [Read more…]

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Who says that we can’t afford a swimming pool?

September 14, 2012 By 2 Comments

The Bürgerversammlung about the new swimming pool last week appears to have a lasting effect on many in Oberursel, because in the space of just a few days the political landscape in the town has changed dramatically.

Let me try and explain the past few years in simple terms first:

1. The indoor pool in the town was closed because the roof was deemed unstable.

2. The coalition of CDU and FDP wanted to sell of a sports field (Altkönigsportplatz) and the swimming pool car park to finance a new building, and an architect came up with a design to include a sauna and modernise the outside pool at the same time.

3. At the town parliament elections last year, the SPD, Green party and OBG were all behind the swimming pool, but did not want to sell of the sports field, and although the CDU remained the largest party in the parliament, the SPD/Green/OBG coalition gained a majority.

4. SPD/Green/OBG drew up a coalition agreement that they would build a new swimming pool, but would borrow at most only 20% of the capital needed to do so and would not sell of the sports field.

5. It was then decided just to build a new indoor pool and leave space for a sauna, moving work on the outdoor pool to a later date.

6. Planning permission was given, changes to Bebauungspläne were approved, and companies started giving quotes on the cost of actually building it.

7. A few weeks ago they even held a press conference to announce that building work would be starting soon.

You could say that everything was going swimmingly, until the town’s treasurer explained why the town could not afford to build it. [Read more…]

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