The story of a referendum and missed opportunity just North of Munich in 2015
MAS Unterföhring
MAS stands for Multi Aktiv Sportplatz. It’s the name I came up with in 2014 for a sports and activity park I passionately believe absolutely should exist not only in the town of Unterföhring, the independent municipality immediately North of Munich, but in practically every community.
I brought up six kids in Unterföhring between 1999 and 2019, and beyond. This municipality, with approximately 11,000 inhabitants, has about 55 playgrounds for children, most built privately by developers / building owners in accordance with Bavarian regulations. Unfortunately, almost none of these playgrounds are conceptualized for children over the age of 5. I know first-hand what it’s like sending kids outside to play when they’re 8-14 years old and having to address the complaints after they come back home a half hour later that it’s boring outside and that there’s „nothing to do“. The demand for and lack of a MAS became glaringly clear to me when my kids were getting bigger and I decided to attempt to have that changed.
In 2013 I made a proposal and concept design sketch for a small plot at the S. end of the train station in Unterföhring to the Gemeinderat. That wasn’t going to be possible, they said. The new Volkshochschule would soon be built there and the space wouldn’t be available. Then in 2014 it became known that the Etzweg project in Unterföhring was to be realized shortly. I proposed that the town council discuss the incorporation of my concept into the project and then made my second suggestion, which was for roughly 20% of the well over 20.000 sq meters (2 hectares / 8 acres) of the planned park. I promoted that proposal to garner support and awareness in the community with this flyer.
My efforts and suggestions went almost completely ignored by the council, despite the strong emphasis on Bürgerbeteiligung by Andreas Kemmelmeyer in his election speech when he became mayor of Unterföhring in 2014. My effort to simply initiate an open discussion about how to best utilize the space available to the benefit of the community was rewarded with exactly the opposite of what Hr. Kemmelmeyer led me to believe regarding his value of Bürgerbeteiligung.
The council shortly voted for a minimalistic concept which offered almost zero value to the community and without any discussion whatsoever, let alone among the members of the community. This was how Bürgerbeteiligung was for Andy Kemmelmeyer and the PWU? I was astounded. So, I went to the press. Below are several newspaper articles that were published in the local newspapers in 2015.
My response was then to design a grand concept for 80% of the property and garner the almost 1000 signatures which were required to force a referendum on the issue, which happened in 2015. The town council and particularly the PWU party which had a plurality if not a majority in the council as well as the Mayor campaigned with the help of the TSV Unterföhring, the sports club, to motivate as many in their circles to come out and vote NEIN zu MAS!! on the day of the referendum. In fact, the PWU even attacked me with 3 lies in their feature article of their last newsletter which they put into every mailbox in the town just days prior to the vote. They stated that part of my concept was for the town to employ me full-time to manage the facility, as if I needed a job and was only making this proposal for my own self interest. Ironically, they also later made the claim in the same article that I was trying to get the town to pay for MY business idea. Their tactics were so unprincipled and so absurd it was truly pathetic. That newsletter is preserved HERE for posterity.
Sadly, even parents of young children wanted “to stay out of it” as they saw supporting me as opposing the town that provided them with free kindergarten. They feared appearing ungrateful. Unfortunately, they failed to realize that businesses in Unterföhring’s lucrative commercial district—not the town council members—were funding their childcare through tax payments. Meanwhile, these same council members actively opposed building an activity park that would have tremendously benefited their children.
In a David vs. Goliath – like scenario, about 600 people came out to support my initiative and concept with their vote for JA in the referendum that at least some part of the MAS concept should be integrated into the new park on Etzweg. That’s all I was asking for. Essentially I was only „suing“ for a discussion to be had about it and not that my grand proposal be adopted as published. My most recent proposal was meant as a suggestion for what was possible but somehow the referendum seemed to be whether or not exactly that plan should be implemented or not. Ultimately it was I who decided the phrasing of the question in the referendum and I have to say, that’s where I made my biggest mistake. I should have phrased it differently to have had any chance of a public discussion ensuing or of actually winning the majority vote.
The Old Guard town council, with apparently much effort and networking, managed to motivate over 2.000 community members to come out and vote against my initiative, and that was the end of it. They built a useless park space on Etzweg that almost nobody ever uses for any reason. Meanwhile, in 2025, the vast majority of kids in Unterföhring are between the ages of 6 and 18, yet 10 years later, almost nothing about the 55 playgrounds in the town has changed to accomodate the interests of kids between 6 and 18 anymore.
The MAS would have been an incredible addition to the town and I truly believe that the community missed out on an amazing opportunity. It could have been a really special and popular place for all ages that would have undoubtedly been enormously popular.
I learned from personal experience how hard it can be to fight City Hall. We say in German, „Recht haben und recht bekommen sind zwei unterschiedliche Sachen.“. That means being right doesn’t mean you’ll win, essentially.
Michael Lasher,
Unterföhring, 2024