Zurzach

Zurzach is the name of a planned merger municipality in the canton of Aargau . It is to be created through the unification of the eight communities Bad Zurzach , Baldingen , Böbikon , Kaiserstuhl , Rekingen , Rietheim , Rümikon and Wislikofen . They are all in the Zurzach district in the northeast corner of the canton. The main town of the community is to be Bad Zurzach, which until 2006 was also officially called Zurzach. The merger project is called “Rheintal +”. Initially, the communities of Fisibach , Mellikon and Siglistorf were also involved, but they later withdrew (Fisibach even temporarily considering a move to the canton of Zurich ).

prehistory

The preliminary stage for a possible merger was the establishment of an administrative cooperation called "Verwaltung2000" in 2000 . The communities Baldingen , Böbikon , Mellikon , Rümikon and Wislikofen were involved in this at the beginning . In 2009 Rekingen joined the association, in 2010 also Kaiserstuhl . The seven still independent municipalities with a total of around 2700 inhabitants aim to optimally organize and carry out their administrative work. The administration is concentrated in two locations: Böbikon (finance, taxes, social insurance) and Rekingen (community office, residents' services, community clerk ). "Verwaltung2000" is managed by a board of directors to which the seven municipal officials belong. A three-person management team reports to this.

The seven municipal officials met at the beginning of 2014 to discuss a deepening of the cooperation between the “Verwaltung2000” association. They came to the conclusion that a church merger should be sought. Inquiries were also sent to the municipal councils of Bad Zurzach , Fisibach , Rietheim and Siglistorf , which received a positive response. While Siglistorf soon withdrew from the project, the other ten communities held in-depth discussions before informing the public about the project for the first time in December 2015. Working groups were formed which examined various aspects of the community merger in the course of 2016. Finally, in January 2017, the population received comprehensive information about the “Rheintal +” merger project.

Political decision-making process

At an extraordinary community meeting on April 6, 2017, nine of the ten communities approved a loan totaling 450,000 francs to finance an in-depth examination of the merger. The assembly in Fisibach was the only one to vote against and even accepted a motion demanding that a move to the canton of Zurich be examined. The main reason for this was that the Fisibach children and young people have been going to school in the neighboring municipality of Weiach in Zurich since 2016 and there were fears that the students would have to be taught in Rekingen, which is much more distant after a merger. Although the starting position in Kaiserstuhl is exactly the same, there was clear approval there. Two months later, the Aargau cantonal government categorically rejected the Fisibach's request to change cantons. But she assured that school attendance in Weiach would still be possible in the future.

After a referendum against the resolution of the community assembly had come about in Kaiserstuhl, a referendum was held there on July 2nd; With a yes share of 73.4%, the financial contribution of 55,000 francs to the examination credit was definitely accepted. Fisibach came back to his earlier decision at an extraordinary community meeting on September 6, 2017 and also agreed to his share of the examination credit, albeit very narrowly with only four votes difference. In the same month, the specialist working groups convened by the municipalities began to examine the merger in depth. A year and a half later, the 80-page final report was available on December 21, 2018. He recommended naming the new community “Zurzach”, concentrating administration on Bad Zurzach and not introducing a residents ' council. Bad Zurzach and Rekingen are to be the only school locations in the long term, although the collaboration with Weiach cannot be terminated until 2026 at the earliest. Existing place names, postcodes and street names remain unchanged. According to the merger agreement presented in April 2019, at least Bad Zurzach and four other municipalities had to agree to the merger.

Extraordinary community assemblies were held again on May 23, 2019 to vote on the merger agreement. Previously, seven councils recommended it for acceptance, while the councils of Fisibach, Mellikon and Rietheim took a negative stance. Nine community assemblies finally approved the contract, some clearly, which means that the residents of Mellikon and Rietheim did not follow the recommendation. The assembly in Fisibach again wanted nothing to do with a merger; the rejection was so clear (more than a fifth of all voters) that the project is definitely off the table. In the nine other municipalities, referendums took place on September 8, 2019 to confirm the merger. The result was positive in eight municipalities, only Mellikon just refused (with a difference of six votes). The merger of the eight municipalities will take place on January 1, 2022, provided the Grand Council of the Canton of Aargau approves this.