Last New Year's appeal by District Administrator Dr Reinhard Kubat

Dear fellow citizens,

For the last time, I am addressing you today as District Administrator of the Waldeck-Frankenberg district with a New Year's appeal. As always at such turning points in life, one is marked by an emotional mix ranging from sadness to farewell to anticipation of coming challenges. At the turn of the year, I am leaving an office that I have enjoyed. I feel a firm attachment to the rural area and to the people who live here. My primary goal over all these years has been to work with you, the citizens, to develop our homeland into a region of the future.

I am convinced that we have achieved a lot here. When I took office in 2010, the regions outside the urban centres were considered loser regions. They were predicted to suffer high population losses and increasing deficits in infrastructure. None of this has happened, quite the opposite. While people in the urban centres have to struggle with problems such as increasingly expensive housing and growing traffic infrastructures, both in public transport but significantly also in the area of private transport, rural areas offer a largely intact living environment with many positive perspectives.

I would have liked to continue working on this project, but already in the past two years we had to face challenges that demanded all our concentration and manpower. In the new edition of the Duden, we find terms like "PCR test", "booster vaccination" or "long covid". These words did not even exist 2 years ago, but today they have entered the bible of German vocabulary. More quickly than almost any other term before it.

Just as quickly, the pandemic overtook us and confronted us with tasks that were new and for which we had to find individual answers. I would have liked to have used these two years to work on the future viability of our district. But they were not in vain. The crisis has given us impulses in certain areas, such as digitalisation in private, school and working life. But I have also always understood the pandemic as an appeal to people's sense of community. You can only defeat an enemy like Corona if you stand together and concentrate all your efforts. The majority of people could be vaccinated in the meantime, but the group of those who refuse vaccination, whether out of fundamental reservations or out of sheer convenience, prevents us from being successful across the board. I hope that many more people from these groups will change their minds and make an active contribution to the fight against corona through vaccination.

And this also brings me to the tasks for the future, which I will no longer accompany from the office of district administrator, but in whatever capacity in my "new life". The state, right down to the smallest units in the municipal sector, as well as our society, are in a continuous process of progress and change. This means that there will always be new challenges.

The preservation of social peace against the backdrop of the pandemic is part of this, but so are global problems such as climate change, which has drastically demonstrated its effects to us this year. As I said, I will also work on the answers to these challenges in my "new life".

Now, my fellow citizens, I would like to say goodbye to you. It was a wonderful 12 years in which I was able to work for you and together with you. I will miss this time. I thank you for your trust, your support, but also for your criticism. My journey is over, I am now passing on the baton. One last time, as District Administrator of Waldeck-Frankenberg, I wish you a Happy New Year, happiness, success, joie de vivre and confidence. Take care of yourself and stay healthy.

Your
Dr Reinhard Kubat