What began a little hesitantly and, above all, very quietly at first, was ultimately a successful start to a new kind of closeness to the citizen: Mayor Joachim Schledt attended a virtual citizen consultation. In the end there were over 70 participants who took part. And 67 comments and participations in the conversation ran on the right of the screen in the Facebook overview bar.
Münster – So many citizens rarely, if ever, came to a physical consultation with a mayor in Münster. Many a citizens’ meeting had fewer participants. This is already a sign that the mayor is right with such “virus-free” proximity to the citizen.
29 people expressed their interest in the run-up to the live switch on Thursday evening, and the event had 19 firm commitments on the screen at 6 p.m. when the “live talk” was supposed to begin. For the first half a minute nothing came, then you saw the town hall chief in the armchair behind the desk fiddling with the mouse, probably still looking a bit surly at a monitor that was not visible to the viewer on the home PC, laptop, tablet or mobile phone. A voice from off tore Schledt from the mumbling, he looked into the camera, smiled and greeted his audience. However, most of the participants initially had to read the message from their lips, because despite the volume control turned up on the home device, the mayor’s voice hardly got through.
With this small initial flaw, the first comments rattled in: “Too quiet!”, “… please louder” and the like. The mayor moved a little closer virtually, spoke in a stronger voice, and off we went across the local concerns.
First of all, the head of the office reported on some larger projects that are currently running or will begin soon, initially referring to the major construction site behind him. And you could almost have seen the excavators on Rathausplatz if the camera had been installed a little higher. Schledt invited all citizens to have a look at the renovation of the canal and the rain retention basin on the town hall square: “… this is really worth seeing.”
This was followed by news about the opening of the library in Altheim, the state of the bridge renovations over the Gersprenz, pending work on the sewage treatment plant, the expansion and renovation of which is expanding into a large project, and more. At this point in time, comments and questions from the audience were already running in the comment bar. A listener said something like: “” … it’s time to do the sewage treatment plant. They are all top people on site ”. Another wanted to know, “How should the annual maintenance costs for the indoor swimming pool be financed?” Lots of traffic, very narrow, little parking space? ”Another.
Whether parking concerns on Mozartstraße or the design of Kirchstraße in Altheim, whether the number of potholes after the frost period or the sending of postal voting documents: Schledt was knowledgeable and answered almost everything. He was even able to report about the potholes that he had stumbled across some in Bahnhofstrasse. A complete frost balance is still pending.
The first mayor’s video consultation lasted exactly 40 minutes and 15 seconds, which Schledt says was a lot of fun. A great result was achieved with 74 participants.
It will certainly not be the last video session with the head of the community.
Anyone who was unable to be there live can watch the recorded video again as a recording on Facebook at the following link Watch the video recording on Facebook: https://fb.watch/3Kpfh20Xvz/ (By Thomas Meier)
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