Darmstadt’s Lord Mayor Jochen Partsch Gives Up Office Amid Controversy – Details Inside

The SPD Darmstadt raises mayor Jochen Partsch (The Greens) suggested that Hanno Benz from the SPD, who will succeed Partsch in office on June 25, wanted to make work more difficult by striving for important personnel decisions before the change of office. Benz won the run-off election on April 2 against the Greens’ candidate, Michael Kolmer, head of the mobility, climate and planning department.

The personnel decisions relate to the post of cultural officer, who will be the direct contact for the new Lord Mayor Benz, who wants to take over the cultural department, among other things. As Partsch said when asked on Monday, the current cultural advisor, Ludger Hünnekens, will retire at the end of July. The procedure for filling the position is time-consuming and was therefore prepared at the end of 2022 and started in January 2023. The interviews are before the runoff been held. Partsch went on to say that it would have been negligent to risk a vacancy in view of the wide range of tasks in relation to the Mathildenhöhe World Heritage Site alone. So the selection process was carried out for technical reasons.