The petition will still officially offer the action group, but in the meantime they have already devised another means to get the municipality’s attention: they want an advisory referendum to be organized. In this way they hope that the municipality will take the residents into account in their considerations, as they would not have done so far.
“Look, in the core we are mainly concerned that the municipality will talk to our residents,” says Van den Berg. “The dialogue they are talking about now is” We submit a plan that you can object to “. That does not sound like consulting me.”
Also to find proponents
And that consultation seems necessary, because there are also Amstelveners who would like to see paid parking. One of them is Martin Cligge. “In the parking lot for my flat, employees of surrounding companies, and visitors to a large nursing home. You can hardly come here with your car during the day, not to mention the problem that we have if a fire truck has to come here.”
“I also prefer to see that they add hundred places with too little space with too little space, but that is simply not that way. If paid parking is a way to tackle that, come on,” says Martin.
Van den Berg of the action group understands that some of the residents are eager for solutions. But that is why, according to him, participation is so important. “It cannot be that the municipality pushes on without talking about it with the residents of all those streets, not if it influences so many people.”