An interesting article to read about how the city botched renaming the Manteuffelstraße to Audrey-Lord-Straße. I cycle past this street every day and I don’t think it’s a bad change. Unfortunately, they’ve done it in such a bad way that it’ll poison every person who hears about it against the very concept of government:
- They failed to notify the people living there until after the change had already passed (incompetent!).
- They decided to only rename part of the street (insane!).
- Renaming part of the street forces the street numbers to be re-allocated (insane!).
„Im Nachhinein ist das eine gute Frage“, sagt Werner Heck von der Bezirksverordnetenversammlung (BVV) Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg.
Werner Heck’s statements are a good argument here for abolishing the entire concept of the BVV. If they couldn’t even be bothered to check-in on the implementation of one of their more material and prestigious measures, then what are they good for?
Heck sagt, es sei „nicht optimal“ gewesen, dass die involvierten Verwaltungsabteilungen „nicht miteinander gesprochen“ hätten.
This makes it clear that it is not uncommon for the Berlin administration to do things without talking to other departments. This is the way you would work, if you’re mentally entirely dead and checked out.
Das Bezirksamt erklärt, das „komplexe Verfahren“ solle künftig ressortübergreifend organisiert werden.
This sounds ‘good’ to the average German but it will in no way prevent these kind of problems from happening because the issue is not one of process or tactics, but one of culture.
All of these were unforced errors and you can ask yourself maybe they were actually intended to make a mockery of the entire process by a civil service that is politically opposed or too lazy to do any real work.
