‘Collaboration agreement’ Uitgeest model of new administrative culture?

It is not a coalition agreement, it is not a council agreement, but something in between: it cooperation agreement of the municipality of Uitgeest† A plan by coalition parties Progressief Uitgeest (PU), CDA and D66, which, according to the introductory text, “is not only based on the party programs of these three parties, but also partly on the ambitions from the party programs of the other four parties.”

And that has (partially) succeeded: VVD party chairman and co-signer of the agreement Mike Zuurbier was laughed at during the council session on Monday evening by stating that he and his party members “had difficulty separating the VVD election program and the agreement.” to keep.”

By co-signing the agreement with Uitgeest Lokaal, the terms coalition and opposition have become obsolete, Zuurbier believes. “This is an example of the new governance culture, an open agreement, taking into account all parties in the council and not boarded up by a coalition,” he says, referring to popular terms in national politics.

In the interpretation debate after the elections in March, Zuurbier already called for a council-wide agreement. “The Party Programs match eighty, eighty-five percenthe then said.

PU, D66 and CDA have not gone that far, but vAccording to Schouten, the ‘extra’ signatures under the cooperation agreement between VVD and Lokaal show “that the intention is to work together and listen to each other.”

And although all parties in Uitgeest are cautiously positive about this approach, it remains to be seen how this agreement will work in practice; the different parties also have different ideas about what they will or will not sign for.

Ice rink soap still throws a spanner in the works

Because the ‘classic’ coalition PU, CDA and D66 may have taken the rest into account in the agreement, the text is very clear on one traditional thorny point: the promised paved skate rink on the ice rink will certainly not come.

That is no obstacle for Uitgeest Lokaal, which is the only party in favor of that paved track, from agreeing to the agreement as an ‘outsider’, just like VVD. Party chairman Dannij van der Sluijs put his signature, with the comment that he urgently asks the council to review the ice rink plans and still build the skate rink, also to ‘avoid a possible expensive lawsuit’.

A similar situation is precisely the reason for the PvdA not to sign the agreement. The party is generally positive, according to party chairman Anneke Terra, “that the agreement elaborates on the policy of the previous coalition.”

The intentions from the agreement to build homes on the site of primary schools De Vrijburg and De Molenhoek, opposite the ice rink on the site of sports hall De Meet, on the site of the Benesserhof, in the backyards on the Kleis and around the Anna van Renesseplein partly even came from that party, when it was still in the coalition during the previous period.

Yet the PvdA does not now support the agreement, because of one fundamental difference of opinion. Terra: “The rule of thirty percent social housing per project is abandoned in this plan. Now ‘they are aiming for thirty percent on the whole’. That is too non-committal for us, so we are not signing.”

Guus Krom, of the Uitgeester Free Party (UVP) and a member of the Uitgeest city council for 22 years, is also not signing anything for the time being. Yet it is difficult to blame her for a contrarian attitude: when coalition talks between the PU and PvdA on the one hand and the VVD on the other collapsed in 2018, she helped the coalition obtain a majority to avoid a deadlock.

She now sees a place for herself as a constructive opposition: “We absolutely agree with the college program, but we want to keep our hands free. And if you sign the agreement, you should actually keep your mouth shut,” she believes.