In the affair about a possible influence of Mitte’s district mayor Stephan von Dassel (Greens) on a recruitment process, Berlin’s governing mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD) quickly demands clarity from the accused.
“The Governing Mayor expects a speedy clarification of the allegations made,” a spokeswoman for the Senate Chancellery told the Tagesspiegel. As Governing Mayor, Giffey is responsible for supervising the district mayors, who act as temporary elected civil servants during their term of office and are accordingly subject to civil servant law.
Von Dassel is said to have offered an applicant a private payment in the course of a hiring process if the applicant would refrain from filing a lawsuit against the Mitte district. This is suggested by text messages from Dassels submitted to the Tagesspiegel, as well as statements by the applicant in an interview with this newspaper.
The highly paid position of head of the control service in the district office was initially awarded to a close party confidant of Dassels. He had previously organized the election campaign for the district mayor and is also a board member of the district Greens in Mitte. However, he was unable to take up the post because of the lawsuit filed by the unsuccessful competitor.
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Von Dassel himself stated after the allegations from Twitter became known that he had never offered any money payments. At the same time, the district mayor admitted that he had checked whether the lawsuit could be averted by paying money through the district office so that his preferred candidate could take up the post. The district mayor called this a “mistake”.
On Monday evening, the parliamentary groups of the Greens and SPD, which form a census community in the district assembly in the middle, will each discuss the future of Dassels in their own meeting.
