The Asser center will have a new, temporary city center director. It concerns Anita ter Veld from Assen who runs an events and projects agency. She jumps into the hole that Edwin Boomstra suddenly leaves behind.
Inner city association Vaart in Assen (VIA) has lost its new center manager Boomstra within a year. He no longer felt comfortable doing the job, because there was too much work for far too few hours. He recently threw in the towel.
Anita ter Veld (56) must continue the current activities in the coming months and is the point of contact for entrepreneurs in the center. In the meantime, she must also ‘put the VIA organization firmly on its feet’ and see what a feasible and workable course for the future is, reports chairman Erik Ziengs.
Ter Veld is no stranger to Assen. She worked for the municipality of Assen for years as an events coordinator, and then helped build De Bonte Wever as an events and conference location. Nowadays she is a director in the prison village of Veenhuizen and is involved in the Drenthe Company of the Year.
Ter Veld is enthusiastic about the job that awaits her for a few months. “It’s my own city after all.” VIA sees Ter Veld as an experienced quartermaster who can help in the coming months. “She brings a lot of experience. She knows both sides well, because she knows how things work at the municipality, but also what is going on with entrepreneurs.”
In the meantime, Vaart in Assen also wants to sit down with the municipality for more money. According to Ziengs, the annual subsidy for VIA should be increased by tens of thousands of euros. Due to losses at events such as Preuvenement and King’s Night, the city center organization had to add money from its reserves for several years, which brought the bottom in sight. “You can no longer afford that money. Prices have risen sharply, but the contribution from city hall has not grown along with it. That has to change.”
VIA has now submitted a budget for this year to the municipality, which it would like to discuss. The councilor has already had 510,000 euros transferred for this year, because otherwise the city center organization would get into financial problems. But according to Ziengs, more is needed. “For everything that is expected of us, we really need more.”
