3.1.02022

Post photo: Masquerade | © Pixabay

Table of Contents

Remembrance

The first time I met Alfred Werth 1972 in California and I still remember this old gentleman very well. Always friendly and, although burdened by very terrible experiences himself, neither resentful nor revengeful.

Today I have come to believe that these are basic requirements for any truly successful person. And that's how I like to remember him and his very own philosophy.

volunteering

The three most important criteria of a volunteering are voluntariness, being elected and non-remuneration. If the voluntarily performed and unpaid services are not elective offices, then one generally speaks of voluntary service or volunteer work.

This volunteering is an essential part of every successful company and therefore deserves unrestricted support. The crux of the matter, however, is that this system then outlives itself and leads ad absurdum when you first start paying verifiable expense allowances and then expand and expand them to such an extent that the original voluntary service or even the popular honorary post becomes one of your own "profession" becomes.

The problem lies in the limit of the amount of expense allowances that are paid for such voluntary work.

I see this in the maximum case in the reimbursement of necessary transport, board and lodging, whereby care should also be taken here that this is only reimbursed for those volunteers who otherwise could not afford their volunteering themselves.

It is always a bad sign when fellow citizens become rich through their numerous honorary posts, then people like to speak of an honorable society.

fat cats

When letters to the editor about the poor condition of a city multiply (Heilbronnerstimme, January 3.1.2022rd, 28: XNUMX – “Image Heilbronner Innenstadt”) and self-confessed Heilbronners have to admit that we not only have a problem of order and cleanliness, but also other problems in education, administration and infrastructure, then you should start thinking about why this is the case.

We in Heilbronn have been taking a completely different path for a long time, we simply look the other way - and do so for as long as possible. We are also intensifying the advertising drum. In the meantime, we are not only a university and bicycle town, but also a research Mecca and the cosiest wine village. If we continue like this, our neighboring cities such as Stuttgart, Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Nuremberg, Würzburg and soon also Munich and Frankfurt will have to accept that they are only fighting for second place.

But we Heilbronners could also start to actually change something for the better.

In the medium to long term, the pegs in education, administration and infrastructure would have to be hammered in. It would also be urgent to decide whether we would like to continue to focus on a public education and school system or whether we would rather go the “American” path that has already been taken.

In the short term we could tackle the problem of order and cleanliness, because this is where we Heilbronners are in demand as a whole - it's mostly not unknown beings from outside who just leave cigarette butts, garbage and other things on the street - it's us Heilbronners; I know not all of us, but way too many now.

Even the simplest traffic rules are disregarded by us Heilbronners. It is usually not the foreigners who use the pedestrian zone as a shortcut from one part of the city to another with their cars or who park in the pedestrian zone and other sidewalks in the city centre.

But since order and cleanliness go hand in hand with education, we have to encourage our administration to keep an eye on us until we “have grown up ourselves”. The easiest way to do this "keeping an eye on things" is through constant checks and effective — because painful — sanctions.

There is clearly an urgent need for action here! The quickest way to do this is to B. the advertising material and other marketing resources are redirected to the regulatory office. However, the municipal council will probably have to make additional resources available for this. The faster and more massive intervention here, the cheaper it will ultimately be for all of us.

I am firmly convinced that with increasing order and cleanliness there will be further positive effects, and new, more interesting and attractive shops and services will return to Heilbronn.

And so that this can also work, we in Heilbronn have for a long time been able to afford at least a semi-professional forty-strong municipal council and four full-time mayors, who are supported by a good 3-strong administrative apparatus and the Bundeswehr.

Not only in my opinion is it more than time that we fill the top positions with real and proven experts, but at least with mayors who have already earned their merits abroad and can now crown their own careers in Heilbronn.

It would be the wrong way to continue to occupy the top positions in Heilbronn with prominent members of the municipal council or even more prominent party leaders. As long as our municipal council members only position themselves or prevent the necessary expertise from coming to Heilbronn, we will also have to read letters to the editor complaining about Heilbronn's poor image.

I would like to quote something from Schiller

"You who mumble into the ice of the bone tears / Your heart's horny flames / Pharisees with the Janus mien! / Come closer – and be silent."
Friedrich Schiller, the Venus chariot (1781)