Nidau civic community
The Burgergemeinde Nidau is the civic community of the city of Nidau in Switzerland .
It is a public corporation guaranteed by the constitution of the canton of Bern and, as a so-called community of persons, consists of 91 people entitled to vote (2011).
tasks
The civic community is entitled to
- the assurance or granting of community citizenship in the form of citizenship rights;
- the fulfillment of their other traditional tasks;
- managing their assets and
- the execution of tasks that have been assigned to it by special regulations.
organization
The organs are
- the voters.
- the authorities (Citizens' Council and standing commissions).
- the employee with disposition authority.
On December 31, 2011, the civic community had a total of 91 citizens with voting rights. Anyone residing in the Biel / Bienne administrative district is entitled to vote . The civil rights of the city of Nidau can be acquired by official resolution in the form of granting, assurance, donation, reintroduction or facilitated naturalization. With its president, the Citizens' Council consists of nine members.
The civic community runs its own pension and scholarship fund. The purpose of this is to pay supplementary pensions to recipients of AHV and IV pensions and training contributions. Citizens residing in the Biel / Bienne administrative district are entitled to receive the services described .
Possessions
Forest
The civic community owns and manages 200 hectares of forest. The forests are in the outlying communities and some have been owned by the city of Nidau for over 500 years. The largest contiguous area is at the southern foot of the Jura opposite Nidau near the Nidauberg and corresponds to the area of the entire municipality of the city of Nidau. Since 1997, the Nidau civic community has been using the wood it produces to produce wood chips, which are then burned in their own heat treatment plant. With forest management, the Nidau civic community fulfills a task assigned to it by the state.
country
In addition to the forests, the Nidau civic community also owns land. Various parcels were given up for social housing under building law. 15 hectares of cultivated land in the suburbs are leased to various farmers. There are other leased parcels by the lake and have been leased , for example, to the Federal University of Sport Magglingen .
Real estate
The town hall of the Nidau civic community is located in the middle of the town. The town hall was first mentioned in 1443/1445 ( Nidau has a nüwes rathus ). The town hall was largely destroyed in the town fire of 1513. In 1752 the town hall was rebuilt. After the reconstruction, smaller and larger renovation and conversion work was carried out. That transfer did Alexander Ludwig von Wattenwyl , bailiff of Nidau, as a benevolent patron on. In 1858, at the time of the Helvetic Republic , the Nidau civic community remained the owner of the town hall even after the separation agreement between the civic and residents' community. The town hall now also served as a meeting place and archive for the Nidau community. Various renovations have changed the simple baroque building only insignificantly since then. In 1994 the town hall was extensively renovated and restored.
In 1972, the Nidau civic community built the Burgerhaus in the Burgerbeunden district, a high-rise with 55 apartments, a doctor's office and a shop. In 1964, the Nidau civic community in the Lower Valais Troistorrents bought a holiday home. The Châlet Riana is rented out. On the Nidauberg near Tüscherz-Alfermée , the Nidau civic community owns the “Güetli” forest property and a log cabin in the Jensberg near Port. While a forester lives with his family in "Güetli", the forest house in Jensberg originally served as a closed shelter for forest workers.
Culture
The Burgergemeinde supports people, organizations or institutions that serve the general public.
history
The city of Nidau was founded in the legal sense in 1338. Even before it was founded, there was talk of Sessleuten zu Nidau. This did not mean the residents of Nidau Castle, but shipmen, fishermen, farmers and traders whose residence was outside the castle in the area of Nidau. Like other cities at that time, Nidau was a so-called founding city. Most of its residents therefore had to be drawn in from outside the country. It can therefore be assumed that the majority were subjects of the count from the territory and were thus freed through special favor from their master. But there were also episcopal people among them in not insignificant numbers. Less numerous true nobility ( service nobility ) of the city lord. This may be due to the fact that the town was built relatively late. There were also wealthy people who chose the town as their place of residence. The majority of the newcomers, however, were presumably unfree ( serfdom ) who achieved a significant improvement in economic and social terms with the arrival. Insofar as the unfree people of God belonged to the bishop, their future position was partly regulated in advance. The count's people, on the other hand, could easily become free city citizens. It was different with serfs (serfdom) or slaves ( bondage (legal history) ) from other domains. For such people, changing their place of residence to the city of Nidau was usually tantamount to an escape or evasion. If they were not reclaimed from their master within the period of year and day, the latter would lose all entitlement to them. According to Zähring law, which can be seen as the oldest city law for Nidau, everyone who came to the city of Nidau and stayed there could live freely. This is where the expression “city air makes you free” comes from.
With a few exceptions, the first townspeople in their entirety will have formed the citizens of Nidau. A first-mentioned citizen of Nida was Niclaus Weiblen von Hermaringen. Already in early 1348 it was recorded in documents whether a person was only an inmate or had citizenship. In addition to family ancestry, social status largely depends on the property in question. All those city dwellers who had no real estate (house or land) were only considered to be so-called rear - seaters , inmates ("inmates"). The inmates who settled in Nidau were mostly craftsmen and tradespeople. Although citizens and inmates had the same duty of obedience to the authorities, the citizens had special privileges. These were evident in relation to the councils' ability to vote and membership of society ( guild ), but also before the courts the citizen was preferred to both inmates and foreigners.
A final category of city affiliation was the Ausburger . While everyone who did not live within the city was referred to as “usser”, the Ausburger were those who had acquired city citizenship (or citizenship rights) but did not actually live in the city of Nidau itself. Ausburger were a rarity in Nidau until the end of the 15th century. But then their number increased significantly. This was because in 1484 the authorities had allowed all remaining private members of the Landvogtei Nidau to buy themselves free from their bondage. For political reasons, these freed people were obliged to take citizenship rights in a city, which in this case meant becoming Ausburger.
As many of the inmates sooner or later became citizens and thus authorized users, the city of Nidau applied to the authorities in 1517 to be able to demand an appraisal (collection fee ) from newcomers . In the beginning, acquiring the citizenship of Nidau was not associated with any particular difficulties. With the decline of the community spirit and the growing emergence of egoism among the citizens, an increasingly palpable contrast between townspeople and villagers developed. Understandably, this was the result of the fact that the civic community had to stick together for centuries so that the often hard-won fortune was not simply stolen from it.
The compromise solution, which was made in the municipal laws of Helveticia , is still valid today: The so-called residents' municipality, which as a political municipality forms the electoral and voting body, consists of all residents of Nidau. The use of the community property was reserved for the long-established local residents, who were grouped together in the Nidau civic community.
people
- Mathäus Funk , Ebenist
- Johann Friedrich Funk , sculptor (* 1706)
- Johann Friedrich Funk , sculptor (* 1745)
- Daniel Funk , watchmaker
- Pagan Abraham Pagan, town clerk and chronicler of Nidau
- Eduard Müller , Federal Councilor
- Ulrich Ochsenbein , presumably November 11, 1811, † November 3, 1890, leader of the second free march, government councilor of the canton of Bern, federal councilor
literature
- Aeschbacher Paul: City and Landvogtei Nidau . Publishing house of the local history commission 1929
- Brogni Hans et al .: Chlouser-Bletter 1 to 6 . Nidouer Chlouserbletter Foundation 1990–2000
- Residential community and civic community Nidau: Nidau - 650 years of change (written by Gabriela Neuhaus). 1988
- Neuhaus Gabriela: Town Hall . Nidau civic community 1994
- Moser Andres: The art monuments of the canton of Bern Land III - District of Nidau II . Society for Swiss Art History, Bern 2005