Bühl has been calling itself "plum town" for ages. But in order to be allowed to write the title on the town entrance sign, an official application is required. The municipal council decided against it at the first attempt - and apparently had not counted on the citizens.
Bühl (dpa / lsw) - After clear encouragement from the population, Bühl (Rastatt district) wants to apply for the official additional title "Plum City". In the second attempt, the municipal council voted on Wednesday for a proposal from Mayor Hubert Schnurr (independent). The decision was unanimous, said city spokesman Matthias Buschert. "The citizens' representatives followed the suggestion of the citizens' initiative."
In a first vote in June, three votes were missing. As a result, citizens started collecting signatures for a citizens' initiative. At the end of September they handed over 3354 signatures. According to the template, 2985 of these were confirmed during a review - significantly more than the 1683 votes that would have been necessary.
Co-initiator Michael Vetter was surprised by the positive response far beyond the city limits. There were only a few comments to the effect that there were no other problems, he told the German Press Agency. "We've already struck a nerve." Vetter sees this as a success for the population.
The city administration is now applying for the additional title via the regional council at the Ministry of the Interior. The otherwise probable referendum will not take place. It would have been associated with high costs.
At the end of 2020, the state parliament relaxed the practice for additional designations for municipalities. Since then it has been much easier for them to use another designation in addition to the community name. Previously, this was mainly reserved for health resorts, which could be given the suffix "spa", and university towns. Since this year, for example, Calw has been allowed to call itself "Hermann-Hesse-Stadt", Markgröningen (Ludwigsburg district) is the "Schäferlaufstadt".
Bühl has long called itself the home of plums. According to the city, the Bühler early plum was discovered around 1840. In honor of the fruit, the plum festival has been celebrated as a harvest festival since 1927. A plum queen represents the blue fruit in the region.
