From the WDR Münster ticker (unfortunately neither RSS nor permalinks): The CDU in Münster has abandoned its plans for a parking garage at the Ludgeri roundabout. With this, the party drew consequences from Sunday's election. It became clear that the CDU would not find a majority with the parking garage. The incumbent CDU mayor Berthold Tillmann just missed the 50 percent hurdle in the municipal election and must now go to a runoff.
OK, what they didn't quite reveal: the Union+FDP has no majority in the council, but rather has equal votes with the others. Only if they get their candidate through in the mayoral runoff do they have - but only with the mayor's vote! - a voting majority. Could well be that something like that pressed their decision button a bit.
Regardless of why and how, the main thing is that this idiotic hole - in landscape and city coffers - doesn't come ...
The usual economic hand-wringing crowd - summarized in our Münster Business Initiative - of course immediately started complaining. And immediately got pushback: The Münster Business Initiative reacted irritably to the CDU's decision to abandon plans for a parking garage at the Ludgeri roundabout. It was a fatal knee-jerk reaction that would harm the city. Sparkasse Münsterland Ost, on the other hand, reacted calmly. The shopping center that Sparkasse is currently building in the city center will flourish even without these parking spaces.
This business initiative, by the way, has an impressive homepage - if you search for them, you only find cases for the Under Construction Club. Well, they're getting nervous too, I think: the retail trade is for the most part not in agreement with their position - all the merchants around the Ludgeri roundabout have anti-parking garage signs hanging in their windows.
And if anyone wonders why they pulled it off the table so quickly: on 10/10 there's a runoff for the mayor and the opposing candidate is running his campaign mainly on the hole at the Ludgeri roundabout. So don't just believe that the Union suddenly discovered its heart for the citizens, they're just nervous that they might lose the runoff and then lack a majority in the council to do anything. Even so it will be exciting enough - just takes one Union council member or FDP council member to get sick and there's trouble ...