The city of Winterthur wants to modernize the parliamentary hall – more extensively than planned last year. This costs around one million francs more. The Landratssaal in Glarus is now used as a model.
The Parliament Hall in Winterthur’s old town was last properly renovated more than fifty years ago. The hall is getting old accordingly. Listeners repeatedly criticize the poor acoustics, for example.
There is no loudspeaker system. The parliamentarians speak without a microphone in their seats. The city announced last autumn that it would modernize the hall, but at that time the focus was more on new furniture and a loudspeaker system with a hearing loop.
In the meantime, however, those responsible have found inspiration in the canton of Glarus, specifically in the district hall, which is already very modern. Now the conversion should bring something more: touch panels, voting system, live streaming and an automatic transcription from dialect to standard German.
The city council is now applying for a supplementary loan of almost one million francs, as he announced on Friday. The city parliament will decide on this. As a result, the project no longer costs 1.3 million francs as previously planned, but around 2.3 million.
The conversion is planned for this summer and should take three months. Parliament should be able to move into the modernized hall in September.
Because of the corona pandemic, the city parliament has been meeting outside the comparatively narrow council chamber for two years. The sessions are currently being held in the Axa Arena.
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