With offers such as the online portal “Tell us simply”, the unified municipality of Osterburg wants to improve civic participation.
Osterburg l At its December meeting, the Osterburg city council came out in favor of a package of measures which, among other things, should lead to a more direct line to the town hall and to increased youth work. One of the elements of improved citizen participation is the free online service “Tell us just” made available by the state of Saxony-Anhalt. This offer enables residents to easily pass on annoyances and suggestions to the Osterburg town hall via the Internet or by telephone.
At the same time, the portal also offers the possibility for residents to find out directly about the status of the processing of the relevant request. According to Mayor Nico Schulz (Free Voters), this online offer is to be set up in 2021 and integrated into the city’s homepage.
Apart from this, the municipality also wants to introduce the PPush platform in the coming year. With this social media channel, residents will in future be informed about news from the unitary community, such as road closures or events. According to the mayor of Osterburg, PPush and “Just tell us” can be implemented without great effort. The same applies to the concern to involve citizens more effectively in larger projects of the unified community through the involvement of working groups. Schulz already has a first specific topic in mind: “One of the next larger items to be discussed will be a design statute. This will have an impact on the development of our townscape. That is why we will involve the citizens in the deliberations on the design statute in the form of a working group, ”he announced.
Apart from the online platforms or the formation of working groups, other ideas of the package of measures are more difficult to implement “because we need financial support for them”, the mayor explained. This applies, among other things, to the idea of making the city’s homepage more user-friendly. Schulz also referred to the concern to better involve the youth in the events in the unified community, for example in the form of an advisory board or a youth parliament. In addition, the community would like to hire a street worker.
While these considerations have already been endorsed by the City Council of the Unified Parish, another element, broadcasting city council meetings live on an open channel or on the Internet, remains controversial. Schulz advocates making use of this option. “The trigger for this consideration is that the city council meetings are rarely attended by residents. That is why the public does not get enough of what is being discussed in the Council. Rumors, dissatisfaction and frustration arise, which leads to a turning away from local politics. One solution to counteract this would be to broadcast the city council meetings according to the motto, ‘If you don’t come to me, I’ll come to you’ ”, the mayor explained.
Whether there will be live broadcasts from the city council in the future could already be seen in January. Then the culture committee wants to exchange ideas with Bernd Zürcher from the Offenen Kanal Stendal about the possibilities of transmission, after which the city council wants to deal with the topic again.
–
