Local politics and the Bürgerentscheid

Among other weighty matters that have been keeping my mind occupied is the highly controversial neighborhood Bürgerentscheid, about which my opinion really doesn't matter anyway.

Seeing as how I can hardly remember my log-in and password, I think it's safe to say that I've been neglecting my 'blog' for awhile. It's not as though I've experienced any major life changes since the birth of Sophia, but somehow, I manage to keep myself busy. But lately Sophia has been sleeping for longer and longer stretches during the night, the weather outside has been less and less inviting, and I still don't have any great work responsibilities -- leading me to the (at least optimistic) conclusion that I could now resume more consistent 'blog' contributions.

Anyway, among the various discussions occurring in our small apartment these days, frankly there is nothing so titillating as the debate surrounding the merits of the upcoming Bürgerentscheid, which I'm pretty sure is the German word for referendum. It started a couple of weeks ago when we received a letter from Charlottenburg city hall, explaining to us in the excruciatingly detailed language typical of political rigamarole about the problems of local car owners, with whom we generally do not sympathize. In simple words, we were being informed that a decision whether or not to add parking meters to the streets of our part of Berlin is at stake in an upcoming vote. Apparently, the problem is that people drive from other parts of town and park on our streets because it's free. Then the people that live here or those who want to drive here to do business in our neighborhood have no where to park.

Assuming I understand it all correctly (I very well may not), the controlling Social Democratic and Green Party factions in the local government, in the interest of solving the traffic problem (and I suspect in a broader sense, discouraging car transit), decreed that the aforementioned meters shall be added. The conservative and financial liberal faction, however, not unlike the conservatives back in America, has a sensitive nose when it comes to taxation, and organized the referendum.

But like local politics back home, the devil seems to be in the details. Conny and I -- specifically Conny, actually, as I have no vote -- found ourselves in the funny position of supporting the conservative referendum, although we have no car and no pressing plans to acquire one. This is because according to the very detailed letter that we received, the proposed metered zone, for whatever reason, excluded our quiet little neighborhood. Meaning that if the referendum doesn't pass, other neighborhoods near ours will be metered and the parking space-devouring hoards will come specifically to our cozy little Kietz to leave their BMWs and Volvos for the day. This would be bad.

And so we reached our decision, that Conny would vote "Ja" for the Bürgerentscheid. Alles klar. Then about a week ago, huge pro-referendum placards of the 'Vote for Hindenburg' variety started appearing at every intersection, sometimes on every corner. We decided to check it out at the Kiezburo, the local community center where the social workers can be found that organize our neighborhood's occasional block parties, community festivals and meet-your friendly-police-officer sort of activities. As in America, these places tend to be staffed by extremely friendly elderly ladies, who despite all their good-naturedness, are unfortunately sometimes clueless. No exception here. This friendly lady didn't seem to know precisely which areas were going to be metered, and had apparently been advocating to the good people in our Kiez -- those without vehicles at least -- that they vote against the Bürgerentscheid, i.e. "Nein," i.e. for more parking meters.

It all reminds me of when I was younger person, when I often found myself attracted to the part of the conservative agenda advocating less government, less control. In the end, it's this sort of thing that really challenges my belief in the effectiveness of government. For average voters, it always seems like complicated wording and over-generalization makes it excessively difficult to properly understand the ramifications of such a proposal -- a decision which should actually be easy in comparison to selecting one of a set of unreliable people as leader. If only it were so simple as "Ja" or "Nein."

At anyrate, I ought to get back to trying to decipher how to get the best price of hundreds of dizzying train fares from Deutsche Bahn...