Bonn citizen’s service center Waiting room in the City Hall gets twice as many seats
Bonn · The waiting room in the citizen service center of the Bonn City Hall (Stadthaus) has been partially reopened. There will be twice as many seats there in the future. However, the information desk, floor and ceiling are not yet finished.
The new waiting area of the service center in the Stadthaus can be used again in some areas. However, it has not yet been completed, Markus Schmitz from the press office explained when asked: "Among other things, the new information desk is still missing. The floor covering and the ceiling are also still being worked on". Seating will be increased to 110 from 50 seats. Especially in the mornings, citizens have had to wait standing up because the crowd is so large.
The renovation involved enlarging the area by 201 square meters, the work having begun in April. The new waiting area, which is twice as large, separates reception and workstations from each other via a mobile glass partition wall. In this way, the waiting room will also be accessible outside of opening hours. Originally, it was thought that the noisy work could be completed after last year's summer break. But the administration said in April of 2019 that the schedule could be not be kept because at first no offers came on the tender they put out and then the offer they received was 40 percent over the figure that the city had anticipated. Putting further tenders out cost time. On Friday, the city press office said that the administration would comment on the total costs for the reconstruction when all the craftsmen's invoices were available. How long the construction work would take was not known on Friday.
In mid-February, Lord Mayor Ashok Sridharan and City Director Wolfgang Fuchs announced immediate relief measures after renewed complaints about long waiting times. From 2 March to 6 April, i.e. until the Easter holidays, the service center offers appointments on Tuesdays and Wednesdays until 4 p.m. instead of 1 p.m. as previously. Mondays and Thursdays are still open until 6 pm. From Easter onwards, the citizen's office in Bad Godesberg is to open additionally on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in the morning, in Beuel and on the Hardtberg additionally on Thursdays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The reason for long lead times for appointments after the new year was that the city had reminded 3,500 citizens in January to renew their ID cards.
(Orig. text: Philipp Königs, Translation: ck)
