Theo Weterings will stop as mayor of Tilburg on 31 August. He just announced that. Weterings is 66 and he feels the intensity of his work and the long working weeks more and more as a limitation. He wants more time for ‘pleasure and happiness’ with his wife. Weterings has been mayor of Tilburg since November 2017.
“I have enjoyed working for Tilburg in recent years,” says Weterings in a statement. “The city that I got to know as a city that exits itself every time, is somewhat contrary and shows guts in the choices she makes.”
Born Tilburger
Weterings is born Tilburger. He goes to Cobbenhagen College in that city and obtained his atheneum diploma there in 1977. He then studies economics at the Katholieke Hogeschool Tilburg. At the age of 23 he became a member of the Tilburg city council in 1982. He becomes an alderman in Rijswijk and a member of the Provincial States in South Holland.
In 2001, Weterings became mayor, in Beverwijk. This is followed by Haarlemmermeer, until in 2017 he succeeds Peter Noordanus as mayor of Tilburg. He becomes the first VVD mayor of that city. “This feels like coming home,” he says when he took office. He uses the Tilburg national anthem and sings along with full breasts.
In his time as a mayor in Tilburg, he soon has to deal with the Coronacrisis. In February 2020 there is ‘Patient 0’ from Loon op Zand, in Elisabeth-TweeSteden Hospital in Tilburg. Corona is in our country. As chairman of the Central and West Brabant Security Region, Weterings is immediately in the middle of the Coronacrisis.
Coronacrisis
With his colleagues Mikkers van den Bosch and Jorritsma of Eindhoven, he gives a press conference about the situation in Brabant after a few days. Weterings is the first to call on social contacts: “Being reluctant in this is strictly necessary. The use of all Brabant players is needed to prevent contamination spread.”
The start of a difficult time full of challenges for the mayor. For the first time since the Second World War, the Tilburg fair is canceled. “Very drastic for the fairground operators and the hospitality industry and difficult for the Tilburg people,” he says about it.
If the crisis lasts longer, the effects of the corona measures are becoming increasingly intense. It is getting weterings. “You will be an entrepreneur and take an extra mortgage to survive with your company. Pension facilities must be addressed because these are currently the only means that are available. That has enormous effects on families and households,” he speaks in January 2022.
Coffee shops
After the coronacrisis, Weterings has his hands full of coffee shops. Together with Mayor Paul Depla van Breda, he is a strong supporter of the weed experiment in their cities. He is also committed to spreading coffee shops over the city, which gives him a fight with opponents of a coffee shop in their neighborhood or shopping center.
Yet Liberal Weterings, who himself did not even smoke a cigarette himself, is convinced in favor of coffee shops in neighborhood centers: “Tolerance, that is such a strange word, we only know that in the Netherlands. Let it become legal, then it really belongs to all neighborhoods of Tilburg. Just like the café and the liquor store.
Coffeeshop Caza has been providing headaches in recent months. After ten attacks in three years, he draws the permit for that coffee shop.
In July 2023, Weterings will be reappointed as mayor for a period of six years, so until 2029. He will not complete that period. About his ambition, he says at his reappointment: “I want the people here to feel that they get more opportunities. They deserve that.”