After having worked for the police for 46 years, Willem van Hooijdonk enters local politics. The ex-spokesperson, who was the fixed face of Bureau Brabant for years, makes himself available for the list of candidates from Voor Aller Oosterhout. “I agree with the views.”
“I am proud that I have been able to contribute to making our country safer all those years,” Van Hooijdonk told Omroep Brabant in June 2024, when he exchanged the blue for a well -deserved pension after 46 years of loyal service at the police. He started as an agent, later became the detective and finally entered the spokesperson. “It will be letting go.”
Waiting for privacy settings …
Whether that letting go a bit worked? “I continue to follow the investigation programs, for example to see who is doing the word after the fatal shooting in Oosterhout,” he confesses. The pensionado has also joined an association with other pensioners agents.
“I feel most at home with his match.”
Now he exchanges the police for politics. During his radio program for the local broadcaster of Oosterhout, in which council meetings are discussed or discussed with municipal councilors, he started talking to Peter de Laat van Voor Aller Oosterhout.
“I feel most at home with his party,” says Van Hooijdonk. After a few conversations with the founder from Voor Aller Oosterhout, Willem therefore decided to make himself available for a place on the list of candidates. In order not to confess political color, he stops presenting the radio program on the local broadcaster.
Just like De Laat, Van Hooijdonk is concerned, among other things, the rising costs for the new town hall, which will be in the Arendshof shopping center. Retailers are housed elsewhere in the center and three hundred homes are being built on the old location of the town hall. For the whole of Oosterhout, their own residents also get priority over (social) housing.
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“In the beginning there was a very enthusiastic and optimistic response to this plan for the new town hall,” says Van Hooijdonk. “But going on the process you see increasing construction costs. It is getting much more expensive than initially thought.” From the start for the whole of Oosterhout, from her opposition role, worries. “I’m afraid it will be a financially heavy burden for Oosterhout.”
The Oosterhout city council has 31 seats, of which 17 are currently in the hands of local parties. Because three councilors from the group of municipal interests stepped and joined for the whole of Oosterhout, the party currently has six seats in the city council. This makes the party the largest now. “To connect to other parties,” Van Hooijdonk wants to use his communication skills from his spokesperson role within the police as a municipal councilor.
“I can take my experience from the police in the council.”
Whether there are more common ground between his work at the police and that of a municipal councilor, he finds difficult to say. “Some subjects are adjacent to each other, such as safety, youth problems and drug trafficking on the street.” For example, there has been a discussion for years whether or not there should be a coffee shop in Oosterhout. “I can take my experience from the police on the council, but first wait and see if I will get in.”
In October or November, Van Hooijdonk will hear which place he will get on the list of candidates for the municipal elections, which will be held on March 18 next year. “I hope for an eligible place.”
