Seven municipal councilors ran away on Tuesday evening at a debate in the town hall of Den Bosch. It was about a parking garage in the council that should come to the new, still to be built, Design Museum. The runaway councilors supported a plan of eight opposition parties to postpone the debate about the parking garage.
The opposition parties only want to talk about the parking garage after 1 July, when the feasibility study about the Design Museum is ready. According to the parties, the two could not be viewed separately.
But a majority of the council did not go along with this. That was a reason for seven council members, led by the Bossche Groenen, on Tuesday evening to leave the room. A number of other parties, who also wanted to postpone the debate, remained in the council chamber. They wanted to make their voice heard in the debate.
About the Design Museum
The new museum is being built for more than 43 million euros just outside the city center, in the Nieuwe Bossche Stadsdelta. It must be ready in 2030. Two years ago, the Council agreed to make a design for the museum and with the preparatory plans for construction.
The new design museum will soon be located in the area around the Tramkade in Den Bosch where the Verkadefabriek is also located. At the Citadel and next to the Bossche rowing club on the Citadellaan, a building with a surface of 5000 square meters, 1000 square meters more than the current building on the Mortel in Den Bosch must be built.
The parking garage must come under the new museum.
Some council fractions spoke the shame of the walking of the council members. “Democracy in this council chamber has dropped by the ice,” says Jochem Huibers of Rosmalens Belang. Also Arjen van Silfhout, Volt councilor, is not an option: “You have to sit at the table even if you don’t agree with something.”
Judith Hendrickx of the Bossche Groenen is clear about the reason to leave the meeting: “The council does not comply with its own rules. After the debacle of the Theater aan de Parade, which was millions more than intended, we said : Never again.
Hendrickx also finds running away itself: “This is also the first time for me. But we have to take ourselves seriously as a council.”
The first plans for the new parking garage that should be in the new Citadelboort were adopted by a large majority.
