Paul Verhoeven will retire early next year, after eighteen years as mayor of Heeze-Leende. He made the announcement during Monday’s council meeting. With three terms of office, he lasted almost as long as his colleague Hans Gaillard, who will lay down the chain of office in Son en Breugel on Saturday after twenty years. Together are currently the longest-serving mayors of Brabant. But are they the record holders of Brabant? Not that.
Mayor Michel Marijnen also retired in 2010 after twenty years as mayor of Roosendaal. In 2008, Marijnen regularly made the national and international news because he closed all coffee shops. Partly because of this, he was named the best mayor of the Netherlands in the magazine Binnenlands Bestuur.
A few years later, in 2017, Ton Rombouts beat Marijnen’s record by stepping down as mayor of Den Bosch after 21 years. In those 21 years he experienced, among other things, the riots in the Graafsewijk. The riots, which lasted three days, arose after a police officer had shot and killed an FC Den Bosch supporter.
Rombouts came to Den Bosch in 1996. Before that he was the youngest mayor of the Netherlands, in the former municipality of Wouw. He was also mayor of Boxtel.
Yet the aforementioned mayors do not even come close to the all-time record holder: Jan van Maasakkers. He was mayor for 36 years. First 21 years of Gemert and then of the merged municipality of Gemert-Bakel. Before that he was mayor of Terheijden. Van Maasakkers stepped down in 2010.
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