facebook vs. waste of tax money

Just started an experiment on how to use facebook in local politics. The issue at stake is the immense expenditure of tax money for the local soccer team SV Darmstadt 98. While the CIty is almost bankrupt, the majority decided to support the soccer-club, which is in fact a business, with another 700,000 Euros. Not to mention all the costs for the infrastructure that is carried by the public. Sandra Klein (FDP) suggested that this money needs to be repaid over time as the prospects for Darmstadt 98 begin to look brighter. I think that is only reasonable. So, I launched a question on facebook on what people think about this. This is especially necessary, in my opinion, because in the established politics of this town everybody (except Sandra) seems to be afraid of Darmstadt 98 and it’s alleged popularity with voters. My thesis is, however, that standing up against the waste of tax money is more popular - that’s the rationale behind this experiment on facebook.

Commission on Planning

Visited the meeting of the Commission on Planning of Darmstadt’s City Council yesterday. It’s just tactics, little conviction and almost no consideration for any ideas what this city should be. Extremely scary was that the new coalition of the Greens and CDU in accordance with the social democrats demanded that unity should demonstrated in the question whether Darmstadt should get an ICE connection and that everyone should follow in on that idea unanimously - now how does that correspond with the pledge for participation? 

Participatory Planning on Europaplatz

Today participation in the planning of a new playground in our neighborhood started. That means that the children are invited to come to play at the site of the proposed playground and tell the City’s planners what they would like to have. I am excited what the outcome will be… will it be different from conventional playground design?

New Liberal Visions

Over the past couple of weeks many people have told me that they think we need liberal politics in Germany and in Darmstadt in particular. Actually sympathy for liberalism has risen with the apparent decline of the FDP - is this the time to move ahead? To bring new ideas to the public and establish new forms of liberal activity that clearly moves away from the haphazard politics of our professional politicians? I would think so… stay tuned. 

The Trouble with Our FDP-Darmstadt

Spent quite some time today, asking people about their opinions on why our FDP in Darmstadt received a miserable 3% at yesterday’s election. The lazy answer is, of course, that the politicians at the Federal level screwed it up. But for me that is only part of the truth. It is the outright reluctance of some of our local politicians to avoid any kind of substantive debate about goals and ideals. They just don’t take the electorate serious and believe that people don’t think beyond their immediate interests. If one thinks like that, the result will unquestionably be that nobody will elect these politicians. I proposed more than once to start a substantial debate and show the Darmstadt public that we think about what Darmstadt should be, how it could work and why we think these were good ideas. Of course, not everybody would have agreed but I believe many people would have valued a debate about ideals and aims. Instead a majority of the FDP in Darmstadt chose to take bold stands on issues in a way that obviously nobody could make sense of - because we didn’t invest the issues with meaning.

I would like to conclude this comment with a statement by Edmund Bacon, who was Philadelphia’s chief planner from 1950-1970. This citation has become important for me in the debate preceding the local election (he talked about planning, but I think this is important for the way we think about and practice politics in general): ““I think one shows far more respect for the democratic process to believe that the process itself has plenty of vigor to beat your own earnestly held values into proper shape, or reject them, then to try to second guess the process by attempting to set up a value system according to what you think somebody else wants.” (Edmund Bacon: Current Problems of the Planning Profession. A Talk Presened to the Annual Conference of the American Institute of Planners, 27.10.1963, University of Pennsylvania Architectural Archives, 095, 256.).

Absentee Ballot

Received my absentee ballot for the local elections in Darmstadt today. It has about the size of a table! The great thing: you can spread your 71 votes on single candidates. My first time “kumulieren und panschieren”.

Local Elections in Darmstadt

Just applied for the forms for an absentee ballot for the local elections in Darmstadt on March 27. It is a bit strange, because the my last information about what is going on in Darmstadt dates back to last October. However, as someone who is on a list to be elected (even though at a place on the list where I will definitively not be elected) I feel obliged to vote via mail.