Online petitions enable participation via the Internet and discussion of the issues raised
Petitions can now be submitted not only in writing as before, but also online via the city's website. For the first time, it is also possible to publicly discuss the petitions submitted. The City Council decided to introduce the additional access channel in January and made the necessary changes to the committee's rules of procedure.
Petitioners submit their petitions in a special online forum at forum.chemnitz.de as a new topic (as before, anonymous petitions are not permitted in this way). The administration first checks whether the matter is the responsibility of the administration or the city council; the Saxon municipal code requires this delimitation. The examination is usually completed within two working days. If the responsibility lies with the city council, the topic is published and released for discussion for four weeks. The statement to be prepared by the administration at the end of this debate can now also address the arguments put forward in the online discussion. This means that arguments, opinions and suggestions directly from citizens can also be incorporated into the local political process of decision-making by the city council.
Finally, while retaining the tried and tested procedure, the petition is first discussed by the Petitions Committee and finally by the City Council. The four-week online participation phase extends the processing time compared to petitions submitted in the conventional way.
If you do not want your petition to be discussed online, you can still send it by post to the City of Chemnitz, Bürgerbüro, 09106 Chemnitz.