Speech 02.02.2009

The spoken word counts!

Dear City Councillors,
mayors,
Dear local leaders,
Dear residents of Chemnitz,
Honoured guests,

Before the city council meeting in August, we had agreed to include the first parliamentary group statements on today's agenda.

Now all the parliamentary groups have the opportunity to make some fundamental statements on the new legislative period.

The people of Chemnitz have entrusted you all, honourable city councillors, with a responsible honorary office.
Together, we are expected to act and make decisions for the good of the city.
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the city councillors who were elected to the Saxon state parliament on Sunday.
I wish us all good, fair co-operation across party lines.

Address,

It is certainly in your interest to make our decisions transparent and comprehensible for the citizens.
A new feature since the beginning of this electoral term is therefore that all citizens can find out even more about our work on the Internet:

• The meeting schedule for the City Council and the committees,
• the invitations,
• all public documents and
• the minutes of the individual meetings

are now available online at www.chemnitz.de and can be read there.
Another new feature is that we have invited interested citizens to apply to work on committees and advisory boards as expert residents.

A total of over 250 applications were received during the tender period from 1 to 31 July. Appointments are scheduled to take place at the City Council meeting on 8 October.

Also new: the Petitions Committee, which met for the first time yesterday. In addition to the residents' meetings, Chemnitz residents now have another instrument of participation at their disposal.
The next step is the drafting of the citizens' participation statutes adopted by the city council.
And then there is the new meeting venue. I know that an interim solution demands compromises from everyone. I would therefore like to thank you for your willingness to accept this. And I would like to expressly thank the school, its management and the pupils for making everything possible for us in parallel with normal school operations.

In a way, every new term of office is a new beginning - 32 new councillors were sworn in at the meeting in August. Together with the experienced councillors, their different biographies provide new perspectives, a different point of view and different experiences that will be incorporated into the debates of this body.

Salutation,

Over the past five years of municipal self-determination, considerable progress has been made for the city and its citizens.

Chemnitz is once again undisputedly an industrial city.

Chemnitz has further established itself as a modern business centre and, what is at least as important in my view, our companies are well positioned. They carry the name of our city into the world with their top-quality products.

However, the following applies to this statement:
Our medium-sized companies will now need a robust constitution and condition.

Because we are feeling the actual effects of the global crisis in Chemnitz just as much - only we are feeling them with a time lag.

We still have no significant indications of a substantial drop in tax revenues in the current year. But the slump in sales for the manufacturing industry in the first six months of this year is already over 24 per cent.

The decline in reported incoming orders in the key sectors is also a cause for concern. Many companies are still working through their order backlog. However, over 40 per cent fewer new orders than in the first half of the previous year will not be without consequences.

It is therefore clear that such a fall in turnover will also affect our tax revenues in 2010 and 2011.
Companies are still cushioning their drop in turnover with a great deal of commitment through short-time working and are trying to open up new areas of business. How long they can keep this up will largely depend on

• when the global economic situation eases again and
• whether the banks are prepared to secure the credit requirements that new orders will bring.

If you ask the citizens of our city what is most important to them, it is one thing above all: having a job.
It is therefore important for our work right now, also in the interests of employees, that economic development remains a central concern of local politics in Chemnitz.

Address,

This year and next year, thanks to the priorities set by the city council and the federal government's economic stimulus package, we will be able to invest more than at any time in the last 20 years since the peaceful revolution: we are investing in schools, daycare centres, sports facilities, roads and the hospital.

These are all important and correct investments in the quality of education and life in our city.

But the coming years will mean that we will have to deal with the consequences of the global economic crisis.

As a result of this very crisis, the national debt of the federal government is higher than ever before in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany. Current tax estimates predict massive slumps in all types of tax.

The financial allocations from the Solidarity Pact, which still account for almost 28 per cent of our entire budget in 2009, are also set to fall to zero by 2019. As early as 2011, following the revision of the financial equalisation law in the Free State, we must therefore expect a significant reduction in allocations.
All of this is changing the conditions of our work and will sometimes force us to weigh up things that are actually important to us all.

It will also require us to make difficult decisions. In Chemnitz, there are no areas where money has been distributed carelessly in the past.

Address,

However, Chemnitz can continue to develop well as a self-confident, modern city in the coming years if we

• remember the virtues of cross-party, forward-looking local politics,
• weigh things up prudently and courageously,
• and consciously set our priorities where they are most beneficial.

Economic development is and remains - as already mentioned - a central task in Chemnitz. This includes

• Fast building permits for company expansions,
• the provision of suitable commercial premises,
• support for new companies and the search for skilled labour, as well as city marketing
• and city marketing, as well as providing advice and support with funding applications.

I would like to mention other points that I see at the top of the agenda at this point:

Firstly:

The renaissance of Chemnitz's economy is largely based on the innovative power of science. It is therefore important to proactively strengthen the interests of our university and non-university research institutions.

• By this I mean further investment in the infrastructure adjacent to the Smart Systems Campus, especially the development of space for the new buildings of the Fraunhofer IWU for cutting-edge research
• I am also referring to the application for the title of "City of Science", for which we can make a decision today

and

• I am referring to support for the university's plans to locate a central library and faculties in the city centre. This could set a decisive strategic course for the further development of our city. But for this, we need the support of the state government and our Chemnitz MPs in the state parliament.

Second priority:

Join me in campaigning at state and federal level

• for the rapid completion of the A 72 motorway.
• for a rail link to the long-distance rail network of Deutsche Bahn that does justice to the importance of the economic region of Chemnitz and south-west Saxony and
• for good and fast local transport connections via the Chemnitz model.

Third point:

Urban development and urban redevelopment are never complete in a dynamic city. Our city's history and demographic change will present us with challenges over the next five years that will not be easy to overcome.

Chemnitz has experienced and is experiencing a structural change in fast motion for which there is no example, no ready-made recipes and no transferable answers from textbooks.

However, answers and decisions are required of us.

The 2020 urban development concept is available to you in draft form. A decision will be made on it in the next few weeks, after which it must be further concretised and substantiated.

It is about nothing more and nothing less than the question: What does the city we want to live in look like? And what course do we need to set, for example when it comes to investing in infrastructure?

There are also still no conclusive concepts for some key questions relating to demolition, without which it will not be possible in view of a vacancy rate of around 30,000 flats.

I think it would be helpful to utilise the experience of others in the difficult field of urban redevelopment in order to be able to make good decisions locally. The planned Urban Design Board of Trustees, which we now want to decide on on 16 September, could provide support in this regard.

An external advisory body, which includes the expertise of city councillors and urban stakeholders, should draw up recommendations and develop new ideas that can become good, sustainable concepts. In Leipzig and other cities, we can see the positive effect that such a committee can have. What the board of trustees cannot and should not do: Take the decisions off our hands.

Fourthly:

We also need new solutions because of falling tax revenues and therefore fewer funds in the administrative budget for our administration. The administration will therefore face up to the task of modernisation.

Partnerships, e.g. in the IT sector, are approaches for transforming the administration into a municipal service centre. We will inform you comprehensively and promptly about the possibilities of such co-operations.
However, we will also have to discuss and decide on structural changes and the filling of vacant positions.

However, anyone who wants a citizen-friendly, fast administration must also realise that we need motivated employees to achieve this. For this reason, a cross-departmental project is working on combining task criticism, citizen friendliness, modernisation opportunities and the need to make savings in a meaningful way.

Address,

Fifthly, we see Chemnitz as a social, family-friendly city. Education is vital for our city and its development.

Therefore, let us work together - despite dwindling funds - to continue the refurbishment concepts for our schools and day-care centres.

Let us support efforts to promote holistic educational programmes

• from the day care centre
• to the school,
• through to the needs-based training of skilled workers for our companies.

Above all, this is about clever networking, coordinated action and cooperation between the various providers of educational facilities: the Free State, the city and the independent providers. The child, the young person, must take centre stage. The educational goal of enabling everyone to graduate from school must be an obligation at all levels.

This year, every school leaver will be offered at least one apprenticeship. For the first time, apprenticeships will remain vacant.

This is an incentive for young people in Chemnitz to stay here, and it means we have a duty to support all career guidance measures. The employment agency and the chambers in particular are doing important work here.

When deciding whether to stay in Chemnitz or come here, the question of quality of life is a decisive factor in addition to professional orientation, training and establishment.

Involving young people and at the same time making offers for all generations remains the focus on many levels - in culture, in sport, in everyday club life. However, it is a challenge to set sustainable, financially secure standards in this area and to maintain them in the future.

Address,

Over 32,000 people in Chemnitz receive financial benefits from the city that help to secure their livelihoods. It is often not easy for these Chemnitz residents to truly participate in a life in the city that we usually take for granted.
This is why the Chemnitz Pass continues to be an important instrument.

The targeted promotion of measures to overcome unemployment, of help for self-help, must also continue to be supported. Although it is still unclear how federal and state funding will develop, we want to commit ourselves to this.

Salutation,

All these issues will challenge us. Again and again. At the same time, new tasks and projects need to be developed, evaluated and decided. In the spirit of continuous municipal work that is not primarily orientated towards election results or deadlines, important projects in this legislative period are already underway or in preparation:

Here are just a few examples:

• The Chemnitz railway junction is currently being modernised and converted at a cost of around 100 million euros.
• The Chemnitz model is to be extended at almost the same time. If the plans are realised on schedule, you will be able to travel from the city centre to Mittweida and Burgstädt on the Chemnitz Model tram from 2013 - and back again, of course.
• The school centre on Heinrich-Schütz-Straße is expected to be the largest new building in the next few years. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2011.
• In 2011, our university and therefore the entire city will be celebrating the 175th anniversary of the Alma mater. It would certainly be great to do this in a "City of Science".
• In 2011, we will also be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the New Town Hall, and hopefully we will be able to inaugurate the reconstructed City Council Chamber in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Milestones also include

• the completion of the community centre on the city centre construction site B3 in October 2010, whose barrier-free meeting place "Lokal zentral" won first place in the "Ab in die Mitte" initiative just a few days ago.
• the conversion of the Poltrock building on Getreidemarkt into a youth hostel, which is due to start this October. and
• the conversion of the Schocken department stores' from next year with the opening as the House of Archaeology in 2012.

Salutation,

"Life is endeavour" is the inscription on the keystone of the main portal of this school. On the opening of the Realprogymnasium in September 1910, the "Chemnitzer Tagesblatt" wrote:
"Life is striving ... probably wants to tell the person entering that he is coming here to a place of diligent educational work where there is no resting and no rusting."

Insights, wisdom, virtues, almost 100 years old - but therefore unfashionable?
So "Life is endeavour" is basically an invitation to all who enter this house,

• to set themselves goals,
• to fight for these goals, but also to
• to listen to others,
• to accept arguments and
• to decide in the interests of the cause.

In this sense, I see this sentence as a good, modern motif for our work.

Dear city councillors,

I wish you the best for your work

• in the political groups,
• in the City Council and its committees,
• in the supervisory boards,
• on the committees of the special-purpose associations
• the advisory boards and
• the local councils

much success.

Much can only be achieved together. As in previous years, our work will by no means be easy or comfortable. However, we must succeed in finding common ground, even in the face of opposing views. In Chemnitz City Council, the next five years should not be about party political profiling. What we need is a climate of mutual respect between all democratic forces and a struggle for the best solutions.

Let us decide together,

• in the interests of the common good, the citizens who have placed their trust in us and
• for the good of the city to which we have committed ourselves, in which we live and to which we are passionate.