The new council of the municipality of De Wolden was sworn in tonight. Gerrie Hempen-Prent and Egbert van Dijk of Municipal Interests will remain in their usual spot. Mark Turksma (PvdA) and Albert Haar (D66) make their debut as aldermen. And that is an honour, according to both politicians.
“I did not see this coming at first,” says Turksma. “The only step you can take after this is becoming mayor,” he jokes. “It was the wish of IC to form a coalition with more than one party. I think it has become a diverse team, now I have to fill a managerial role and I am really looking forward to that.”
Colleague Haar is also happy with his appointment. Although he indicates that he has never had the ambition to become an alderman, it does mean something to him. “I have been on the council for twelve years, in quite a modest position with our small party. I never entered it with the expectation that I would become an alderman, but I do see it as a very nice challenge.”
And it will certainly be a challenge, because Haar will be working part-time. Something that former alderman Jan van ‘t Zand of Municipal Interests also did from 2014 to 2018. And that was quite difficult, because he ended up working full-time. She’s not worried about that yet. “The board then went from 3 to 2.5 aldermen. Now we are growing from 3 to 3.5. I can get very enthusiastic about things, so I sometimes have to slow myself down a bit. That will probably work.”
In the coming years, the resident of Zuidwolde will focus on the services provided by the municipality. That is good, but can be even better, that is the ambition. “It is going well in many respects, but the intention is that we involve residents even more in our choices as administrators of the municipality. We need to become even more visible and I will work on that.”
The municipality of De Wolden will be the cultural municipality of Drenthe in 2023 and will also exist for another 25 years. He will also be involved in the field of culture. “We are a thriving municipality and we are going to show that.”
Turksma will take care of education, accessibility and social themes in De Wolden. The first challenge for him is to solve the problems that the minimums face. “My first ambition is to see how we can meet low incomes with rising energy prices and ongoing inflation. In addition, I am very much looking forward to getting started with the social domain. Hopefully we can make improvements there .”
Just like the previous council term, Gerrie Hempen-Prent of Municipal Interests will continue to be involved in housing, agriculture and entrepreneurship. Her colleague and party colleague Egbert van Dijk takes care of sports, waste and inclusion policy. He will also continue to manage the finance portfolio. Ina van Goor – Van der Veen and Patrick de Boer take over their places in the group of Municipal Interests. At the PvdA, Anneke Assink takes over as councilor. Eva Salomé will represent D66 in the council.