Not fifty unaccompanied minor refugees in one location, but in smaller groups spread over several places. Municipal interests and the PvdA want the municipality of De Wolden to adhere to that agreement.
Both parties submitted that request last week through a motion. The municipality has the plan to compensate for fifty minor refugees in the Steenbergerhoeve in Zuidwolde. Part of the village does not want that.
They fear that there will be nuisance. The villagers also point out that the political agreements have been made to accommodate a maximum of 15 minor refugees per location.
De Wolden decided by the commotion to postpone the plan and again with the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers. Municipal interests and the PvdA, ask the municipality to continue to insist on small -scale care during those conversations.
“With this we hope to remove the unrest in Zuidwolde,” said Petra Haanstra, party leader of Gemeentebelangen. Together with the PvdA, her party had enough seats to guide the motion through it.
According to Haanstra, the reception of fifty people is not so much a problem, but the agreements around it. For example, it was agreed with the council to accommodate a maximum of fifteen refugees in several places. De Wolden wants to deviate from that.
“That goes against the agreements that we made together,” said Haanstra. Co-inventor Anneke Assink of the PvdA supported that statement. She believes that the municipality should emphasize again at the COA that the refugees are being taken care of in various places.
“The number of fifty is certain, but according to the rules that we have set together.”
With the motion, the parties request the municipality to find out what shelter would cost in one place or in three places and to study that. Other parties found that nonsense. “I don’t think the municipality has to be in the COA’s chair,” said CDA councilor Tamara de Boer. The COA pays all costs for childcare itself.
Because of the unrest, De Wolden therefore decided to stop the plan temporarily, to start a conversation with the COA again. Henk van IJzendoorn from GroenLinks, therefore, found the motion unnecessary.
“The conversation still has to happen,” says Van IJzendoorn. Now it seems that municipal interests and the PvdA have no confidence in alderman Rudi Hooch Antink (Municipal Interests) to be able to have that conversation properly.
Iris Builders of the CDA went along with this. “Is this not a disguised motion of no confidence towards the alderman?” According to the applicants, that was not the case.
The municipal administration went with each other in consultation for a long time because of the motion. Alderman Hooch Antink finally announced that he would respond to the request to include all the points mentioned in the conversation with the COA.