A WORD FROM THE MAYOR: UNDERSTANDING THE 2013 BUDGET
Given the budget constraints, our municipality only undertakes costly investment works if they are substantially subsidised by the State, the Lorraine Region, the Moselle département council and a few other bodies. Thanks to grants of varying size we have so far been able to build the church boiler room, renovate the shooting range, restore municipal roads, set up the after-school service and study a possible educational trail. Without any aid we fitted out the nursery school, created the Petite-Suisse housing estate and carried out the inquiry to set up the protection zones around our drinking water source.
Add to this the works to make Waldeck Castle safe, for which the municipality must pay invoices totalling €488,924 in instalments as payment requests come in, whereas the corresponding grants – 100% of the amount excluding VAT (€408,800) – are only paid two to four months later. The municipality therefore had to take out a €200,000 short-term credit line repayable in July 2013, while the Waldeck expenditure still to be committed in the 2013 budget amounts to €263,436 and the grants still expected to €190,000. A solution will have to be found through a new bridging loan.
Over the last 4 years, our municipality’s debt has fallen from €482 to €222 per inhabitant – a fragile situation that may well rise slightly again – whereas the average for the département is now €486 per inhabitant and the national average €597.
In the current context, the municipality will therefore not go overboard in 2013. The council has budgeted minimal investment for road signs, street lighting, general equipment, buildings and the compulsory purchase of new software. It is postponing the educational trail and the thermal and acoustic insulation of the salle Rapin, as no grants have yet been found for these projects.
If the opportunity arises, the municipality may buy land and resell it plot by plot for building, even if that means taking out another credit line.
It will of course complete the investment works already under way or ordered: Waldeck Castle, the Petite-Suisse housing estate and the installation of 2 speed indicator signs.
Note also that the water budget leaves us a reserve of nearly €100,000.
Your council’s aim is to make reasonable, controlled investments that are essential for residents’ well-being, while making sure not to crush them with taxes. The council voted a 1% increase in the tax rates for 2013, which represents only €666 more for the whole population.
E. Eitel
Please note: the multi-stream waste collection of Thursday 9 May is postponed to Friday 10 May 2013.
MUNICIPAL COUNCIL MEETING OF 28 MARCH
The municipal council votes and approves the 2012 accounts:
- General budget: operating section, expenditure €234,547.79 and income €271,102.39; investment section, expenditure €293,470.76 and income €220,570.23.
- Water budget: operating section, expenditure €67,144.41 and income €52,979.12; investment section, expenditure €26,239.20 and income €32,975.70.
The council decides to allocate the cumulative operating results as follows:
- General budget: the 2012 cumulative operating result of €36,554.60 will be allocated in full to cover the funding requirement of the investment section.
- Water budget: the 2012 cumulative operating result of €54,835.03 will be carried forward in full as a surplus.
The council decides to raise the tax rates by 1%; the rates are now:
- Residence tax: 6.12% (département average: 11.28%)
- Property tax on built land: 7.47% (département average: 11.29%)
- Property tax on unbuilt land: 51.19% (département average: 52.19%)
The council adopts the 2013 budgets as follows:
- General budget: operating section balanced in expenditure and income at €265,289; investment section at €753,867.
- Water budget: operating section balanced at €106,619; investment section at €104,561.
The other decisions taken by the council on 28-03-2013 in brief:
- A grant of €40 for each pupil of the J.J. Kieffer secondary school taking part in an educational trip to Grasse from 15 to 20 September 2013.
- A grant of €300 for each of the following associations: “La Vigilante” shooting club, the “Seniors’ Club” association and the parish choir.
- The Mayor is authorised to issue invoices to France Télécom for its use of public land from 2008 to 2013, amount: €4,278.74.
- Membership of “Moselle Agence Technique”, to be founded by the département council to support municipalities with various technical projects.
- Signature of an easement agreement with the Bitche Community of Municipalities for an underground waste-water pipe from rue de Waldeck to the settling tank on the right bank of the Falkensteinerbach. The municipality is concerned through plot 176 in section 1.
- Write-off of unrecoverable water bills from 2007, 2008 and 2009 totalling €774.73.
- From the next school year, the municipality will give every primary pupil a free subscription to the magazine “Les petits papiers”: 6 issues a year, 48 pages each. Total cost for the municipality: €100 excl. VAT. The content is linked to the school curriculum. The aim is to awaken curiosity about reading and a love of learning.
DIARY
- 2 May: asparagus meal for the Seniors’ Club, followed by a visit to a beehive in Eschviller
- 12 May: flea market organised by the C.I.A., salle Rapin
- 20 May: open-air mass at the Erbsenthal chapel, Friends of the Chapel, 10am
IN MEMORIAM
Mrs Thérèse Mehlinger, born in Eguelshardt on 13 December 1920, died in Haguenau on 12 April 2013. We offer our sincere condolences to her daughter, Mrs Nicole Proust, and her son-in-law, Mr Claude Proust.
“A ROSE… A HOPE”
The association “Une Rose… Un Espoir” (A Rose… A Hope), based in Rohrbach-lès-Bitche, is again holding a fundraising event this year, with all profits going to the Moselle committee of the “Ligue contre le Cancer” (cancer charity). It will take place on the weekend of 28/29 April 2013.
A group of bikers will call at the doors of our residents. So that you are not asked by several bikers, a small chalk cross will be marked on the road at the first visit. Thank you to our generous donors.
LOST SYDEM’PASS
If a Sydem’pass card is lost, stolen or damaged, a replacement card will be charged for.
To receive the replacement card by post, the household must send the Sydème its details (names and postal address) and a cheque for €5 made payable to the Trésor Public to: SYDEME, 12 place Robert Schuman, 57600 Forbach. Freephone: 0800 600 057 (free from a landline).
RED CROSS
The office is open every Tuesday from 9am to 11am and can be reached on 03 87 28 03 86.
In an emergency you can call 03 87 95 51 96 or 06 67 67 54 97, or Mrs M.T. Schneider on 09 83 29 07 77 or 06 98 91 15 68.
HELICOPTERS IN THE VILLAGE
In March, the army held manoeuvres in our municipality, to the great delight of the children from the after-school club, who were able to admire and even visit the helicopters under the fond gaze of the soldiers.
TAP WATER
The people of Eguelshardt use about 27,000 cubic metres of water from the municipal network every year.
Protecting and monitoring drinking water are major public health issues. The Regional Health Agency checks the quality of the water supplied at every stage of its production, from the source to the tap. It has just sent every town hall in Lorraine a brochure with the results of the analyses carried out in 2011. Below we summarise the situation of our municipality as shown in the tables and maps of this brochure.
- Protection of the water sources: after hydrological studies, a public inquiry and the creation of a protection zone, our source in Stockbronn has had a Declaration of Public Utility order since 2010.
- Bacteriology: no analysis has found water that fails to meet bacteriological standards.
- Nitrates (mainly from farming): our water is free of them.
- Pesticides (insecticides, herbicides, fungicides): likewise.
- Aggressiveness: our water is aggressive; like all water drawn from old sandstone massifs, it is acidic and corrodes the materials it touches, such as the cast iron of our pipes. The result is rust. Before filling the glass you are going to drink, it is advisable to let a little water run off when you turn on the tap.
- Arsenic: not found in the analyses.
- Turbidity: an overall indicator of suspended mineral matter (clay, silt, iron hydroxide, etc.) or organic matter (humic acids, plankton, proteins…) that makes water look cloudy. Our water has no turbidity problem.
Overall, our municipality is among those in Lorraine with the best results for all the parameters analysed, except aggressiveness. To counter it, we have to keep adding limestone (neutralite) at our treatment plant, but the plant’s capacity for refilling limestone is too limited, and we are planning works to modify the system. The 2012 and early 2013 analyses confirm those of 2011. It goes without saying that if a problem were detected, the mayor, in line with his responsibilities, would inform the population immediately.
E. Eitel
THE PEREGRINE FALCON
This prestigious bird of prey holds the world speed record in the animal kingdom: it can reach 300 km/h in a dive. In ancient Egypt, in the form of the god Horus, it symbolised the sun god. It has given its name to many rocks in the Pays de Bitche: Falkenstein, Falkenberg, Falkeneck…
Decimated by pesticides and taken from its nests by falconers from Germany, it almost disappeared from the Northern Vosges in the 1970s. In 1972, a handful of ornithologists and environmentalists from Bitche organised the first watches near Sturzelbronn: so many sleepless nights, sometimes rough ones, to fend off the human predators financed by the wealthy steel bosses of the Ruhr.
Trained for falconry, a form of hunting reserved for lords, this beautiful raptor has nested in cathedral towers and the old skyscrapers of New York. Food – crows and pigeons – was plentiful, and the falcon kept the numbers of these invasive birds in check. The lords of the Northern Vosges castles used it in the 13th and 14th centuries. A 13th-century bell was found at the foot of the Waldeck. Attached to a leg, the bell made it possible to follow the bird from a distance during the hunt.
Today, apart from a handful of French and German falconers, it is the Persian Gulf that recruits these birds, often taken from the nest and trained in Europe.
The first animal to go on strike was a peregrine falcon. Taken from a nest in northern Europe, it was trained and sold to a powerful oil king in the Persian Gulf. With its down and thick plumage made to withstand the harsh cold of northern Europe, our bird could not bear the desert heat and refused to hunt. It managed to escape its trainer and settled on a supertanker full of oil bound for Europe. Thirty days later, the harbour master’s office of the port of Antifer at Le Havre called the Lorraine head of the falcon protection association to come and collect this beautiful raptor and release it among the cliffs of eastern France.
Gilles Fauchon
PRAYER OF THE FOREST
Man!
I am the warmth of your hearth on cold winter nights
I am the friendly shade when the summer sun is burning
I am the beams of your house, the board of your table
I am the bed in which you sleep and the timber of your ships
I am the handle of your hoe and the gate of your fence
I am the wood of your cradle and of your coffin.
Hear my prayer:
Do not destroy me!