Mayor Martin Horn and the local councilor Gerda Stuchlik said goodbye today. As the head of the department for the environment, youth and education, she was part of the mayor’s bank for three terms and played a decisive role in shaping the politics of the city of Freiburg for 24 years. Gerda Stuchlik was elected environmental mayor for the first time on March 18, 1997 and was re-elected on January 25, 2005 and January 29, 2013. She will retire on April 7th, after the local council elected Christine Buchheit on February 2nd as her successor.
“Gerda Stuchlik not only worked hard on her issues, she also fought. The environment, youth and education are equally important to her. In the 24 years she has decisively shaped our city and brought it forward. I thank her from the bottom of my heart for that, ”said Mayor Horn about his colleague.
Gerda Stuchlik, born in Oberursel in 1958, studied biology, history and politics to become a teacher in Frankfurt am Main. She then worked for several years as a research assistant at the University of Frankfurt and the University of Kassel and organized an international symposium on the topic of “Women and Fascism in Europe”.
From 1986 to 1992 she worked as an assistant in the Green City Council in Frankfurt and as a freelancer at the Environment Forum Frankfurt. From 1992 to 1994 Gerda Stuchlik built the association “Climate Alliance of European Cities with the Indigenous Peoples of the Rainforests to Protect the Earth’s Atmosphere” as managing director. She then worked for the city of Frankfurt as a personal advisor and office manager for the city’s head of the environment, energy and fire protection, Tom Koenigs, for three years before she came to Freiburg in 1997 and was elected mayor – as the first female mayor in the more than 900 years of Freiburg’s city history .
Here she was initially responsible for the environmental protection department, the forestry department and the garden department, but on February 1, 1998 she also took over responsibility for the school and sports department at that time and thus for the education sector. After the sports department moved to Department IV, building management was added in 2006, which was reorganized during this time and set up a comprehensive renovation program for the city’s buildings.
And from 2010 she was also responsible for youth, with the newly established office for children, youth and family. Since 2011, she has been responsible for the environment with forest and waste management, youth, school and education. This also includes extracurricular and early childhood education, with a newly formed office for municipal day-care centers since 2018.
In addition to chairing the municipal council committees in her area, she was also a member of the Wiwilí Commission, the board of directors of the music school and the adult education center, the supervisory board of the ASF, the GAB (Gesellschaft Abfallwirtschaft Breisgau mbH) and the administrative board of the wastewater association Breisgauer Bucht. The adult education center and music school were taken over by her in a difficult financial situation and can now work solidly and in a consolidated manner.
Gerda Stuchlik always devoted herself to all of her areas of responsibility with the same energy and dedication. Among other things, all-day school and school child care were introduced during her tenure, U3 care expanded, Freiburg education management implemented at the Office for Schools and Education, and school social work expanded, where Freiburg is at the top nationwide. The cooperation with the state school administration was also intensified and concrete projects with extracurricular partners such as foundations were initiated. The LEIF project (experiencing learning in Freiburg) or the regional education office were set up. Stuchlik’s conviction that education and learning is a lifelong task beyond school education led to new offers in the field of youth and adult education. The wide-ranging, cross-age offers, for example the Öko-Station, the Freiburg Planetarium and the forest house planned and built under their leadership, take this contemporary approach into account. The success of this approach is particularly evident at Mundenhof, which inspires all generations equally. The aspect of sustainability is particularly important to her in educational projects. At the moment, on her initiative, the new timber construction of the forestry office and a climate laboratory are being realized in the Wonnhalde.
Above all, the school renovations were systematically tackled and put on a path that is consistently continued to this day. More than half of all school buildings were partially or fully refurbished during their tenure and in many cases were significantly expanded; the bottom line was that around 500 million were invested in this. In addition, quality standards, language support programs and scientific offers were introduced or significantly expanded.
In the environmental sector, Freiburg gradually acquired its reputation as a “Green City” and as Germany’s most sustainable metropolis during Stuchlik’s tenure.
She set important accents, among other things, by founding the energy agency Regio Freiburg and the introduction of its own municipal budget for climate protection as the first municipality nationwide. In 2000, the waste management in Freiburg was partially privatized, which today has high recycling rates and a particularly low amount of residual waste. For the Freiburg city forest, she initiated certification with the renowned FSC seal. In addition, there was also the offer of free energy-saving advice for all citizens. All of these efforts are having an impact: in 2010 the city of Freiburg was voted “Federal Capital for Climate Protection” by Deutsche Umwelthilfe, and two years later it was voted the most sustainable city in Germany.
Their commitment and expertise were indispensable for the progress made in terms of climate protection and species protection, the ecological flagship districts of Vauban and Rieselfeld, the environmentally friendly planning for the future Dietenbach district and the ambitious goal of making Freiburg a climate-neutral city in the future.
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