On October 20, 2020, the parliamentary groups will hold their speeches on the 2021 city budget. Due to the special circumstances and the financial situation, the budget will only be passed for one more year instead of two years this year. City Councilor Petra Lorenz held the speech for the FW|FOR Karlsruhe parliamentary group. The spoken word is valid.
Dear Lord Mayor,
Dear Mrs. 1. Mayoress,
Dear Mayor,
Dear Colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Dear media representatives,
A wise woman once said: “You cannot live beyond your means in the long run!” – This is also the core of the current crisis!
Investment and spending theme
In the past few years, we’ve let it rip. Karlsruhe has risen as a growing city, -boomtown- to the second largest city in Baden-Württemberg, with strong influx from outside and a prospering economy. What could be more obvious than investing heavily? No construction project seemed too expensive, many buildings were in need of renovation and fire protection was a real accelerator!
Europahalle, Stadthalle, U-Strab, Staatstheater, KSC Stadion, I could continue the list, but I don’t want to bore you, no object is too expensive, no construction schedule too long – German Engineering – we can do everything except build!
And so it is not surprising if the citizens have less and less trust in politics and actually already know with every planned construction project that the figures presented to you are more wishful thinking than reality and the construction time and the stated costs are in the best Double the fall, triple at worst.
The sins of the past are catching up with us more and more. The follow-up costs of the combination solution alone will add up to 40 million euros a year, and that with a deterioration in the quality of the timetable for some parts of the city. And whether a conversion of the State Theater with 500 million plus x is still justifiable, each of you must agree with your conscience and answer to the citizens!
Hand on heart, would you personally do the same for yourself? Would you renovate, add, and remodel your home knowing your children and grandchildren are still footing the bill because you planned poorly? Hardly likely! Every businessman knows that debts are nothing bad as long as they can be repaid. However, this is only fair to the generations if it is possible in the medium term to pay the interest and repay the loan through debt service. If this is no longer guaranteed, then we must also have the courage to stop a project or not to start it at all.
The prerequisite for a positive profit budget is always that we keep an eye on the follow-up costs of the investments and that the cyclical tax revenue – which is at least 80% of the total tax revenue – does not collapse. In the last eight years of the economic boom, with the highest tax revenue the city has ever had, the debt per inhabitant has already risen from €537 in 2011 to €870 in 2020, although taxes and fees have increased during this time! And the per capita debt threatens to rise to over €3,800 in the next four years if we don’t take massive countermeasures.
This year came what nobody would have thought possible, a lockdown, the full impact of which will not hit us until 2021/22. The two levers we have are revenue increases and/or cost savings. Trade tax revenue should increase primarily due to a higher number of companies. Because when it comes to the trade tax rate, Karlsruhe is already in the top league! With a further increase in the tax, we will achieve the opposite effect: commercial enterprises will migrate and look for more attractive locations where they have to pay less tax.
Ladies and gentlemen, we free voters | FOR Karlsruhe strictly reject an increase in trade taxes in times of collapsing economy!
We strictly reject an increase in trade taxes in times of collapsing economy!
Petra Lorenz
The more attractive the local conditions are, the more attractive it is for companies to settle there. Medium-sized companies, service providers, craft and industrial companies, combined with creative economic development, create and maintain jobs and training positions. These are not only prerequisites for the skilled workers of tomorrow, but also for securing the location and securing our municipal tax revenues and our prosperity.
To do this, we need unbureaucratic procedures and good location marketing. The city is designed on site and the use of existing areas alone is not sufficient for further settlements. The creation of areas for smaller commercial and mixed-use areas, in which medium-sized companies can settle, must not be taboo.
housing and climate
Affordable housing urgently needed. Densification mutates into a nonsense.
Of course, each resident brings more money to the municipality; and if we want to remain the second largest city, then we have to increase the density. We must? Does a city have to grow at any cost? The effects of climate change and the events surrounding Covid 19 show us limits, limits that we have to take seriously! Not every last inner-city green spot has to be built on and not every garage yard necessarily has to be a high-rise building. Our parliamentary group advocates densification with a sense of proportion and not for silos at any price. In the future we will have to think about how we can preserve, expand and irrigate the green oases of our city and how we can leave enough free space to be able to keep our distance. Sufficient free space is also required for the expansion of cycle paths and covered parking spaces if we really are or want to remain a cycling city.
Around 3,700 standards are relevant to construction in Germany. They are the ones who, along with the increased construction activity, are driving up costs. How is affordable housing defined? What is meant is living space for fellow citizens with low incomes who cannot adequately provide for themselves with living space on the market on their own. Volkswohnung does a lot here and will have to do even more in the future. Therefore, we will not agree to the siphoning off of capital from the municipal housing association.
The change in society will exacerbate the shortage of living space in the long term, because the number of single households not only among seniors, but especially among young people will continue to increase in the coming years. Hence we see Free Voters | FOR Karlsruhe there is a great need for innovative, integrative living space models for young and old, as well as for multi-generational quarters, which must be consistently further developed, developed and offered.
Theme inner city, family, youth and security
Not only our city is at a historical turning point after more than 10 years of urban redevelopment. Inner cities will generally be used differently in the future and have different meanings. They will preferably be places for social contacts and no longer primarily a place to shop! However, other cities have done their homework in the meantime and beautified their inner cities, while in Karlsruhe there was and is still a lack of very banal things such as seating and garbage cans. The creation of an expert opinion alone is not enough for improvement, measures must be implemented immediately, otherwise all the expensive advice is useless!
It’s already 10 past 12 here! And the much-vaunted “Countdown Strategy” has also disappeared into the “P” tray! The redesign of the market square with the water features, which are particularly popular with small Karlsruhe residents, already gives an idea of what will be important in urban life in the future! Therefore, first of all, rethinking and stepping on the gas are necessary! We can’t live with a patchwork solution downtown for the next 15 years!
In addition to clear afforestation, our group will support every possible location for planting trees on the market square and demand that the city center be designed into an attractive pedestrian zone that is adapted to the climatic challenges, with more greenery and more water!
Karlsruhe will only remain attractive if people feel safe there. To do this, not only must the objective security situation remain at a good level, but the population’s subjective sense of security must also be guaranteed in all parts of the city. In addition to the solidarity of the city administration, police and municipal security service, we demand the temporary establishment of police/KOD stations at the known hotspots and viable security concepts.
Families and young people ensure growth and prosperity and stand for the future. Therefore, every investment in education and in our educational institutions is an investment in our future. We cannot agree with the big “list of tears” in the field of school renovations! In many areas that have become dear to us, we will certainly have major cuts in the next few years. Delaying the overdue renovations at our Karlsruhe schools is absolutely the wrong way, we will not go with it!
Volunteering
In many areas of our urban society, such as integration, in the social area, culture or sport, the people of Karlsruhe are involved on a voluntary basis. Without volunteering, many things in our city would not be possible and not so lively. We Free Voters | FÜR Karlsruhe expressly appreciate this commitment and would like to thank all volunteer citizens. We would like to thank the administrative staff for their support throughout the year and the colleagues on the municipal council for the good, appreciative atmosphere.
We look forward to targeted advice for the benefit of our city!
Thank you for your attention!
