Stichting Merk Meppel is asking for an extra 166,000 euros from the municipality of Meppel to put Meppel even better on the map. Political parties have doubts about usefulness and necessity.
What the foundation does can be summed up in one word: city marketing. For the past six years, this has focused on Meppel itself, for 48,000 euros per year. But now Merk Meppel wants to spread its wings. Chairman Marieke Navarro misses the mark. “International.” No, she doesn’t mean that. “Interregional of course! Haha, international would be great.”
The foundation asks the municipality for an extra 166,000 euros per year, for this year and next year. This brings the total to 214,000 euros. Mayor Richard Korteland has no problem with that. “City marketing is of added value to us. The people within our municipality have now been found.” He points out that city marketing is not intended to put Meppel on the map for Meppelers. “The goal is to attract more visitors and entrepreneurs.”
But the mayor is the only one who thinks so positively about it. Political groups are not against city marketing. The problem is with the money. There is no hard no to the subsidy. They doubt. They’re missing a plan. What will it actually deliver? And what has it already achieved?
“You can ask a company that. But not us,” Navarro responds. “We are volunteers.” Stichting Merk Meppel is made up of all sectors within the municipality. This means that each sector is represented and gives its own implementation to the objectives. Examples include education, industry, culture, healthcare and government.
She says it’s best to measure what it’s delivered. “Real measurement really costs a lot of money.” The mayor steps in. “Measuring may cost as much money as the campaign itself. At the library, for example, we don’t ask what it actually yields. How many visitors it attracts.”
In the era before Merk Meppel, the municipality did the city marketing itself. At that time, more money was spent per year than is now demanded in total. “At the time I never heard advice about the money,” says Korteland. “Now it happens for an apple and an egg. What Merk Meppel does for that, we could never have succeeded.”
But the factions stick to their point and are not yet enthusiastic. All the more so because the municipality decided a few years ago to cut all subsidies and because there are still a lot of major cost items that will cost millions, such as the theater or a new swimming pool. CDA points to a successful lobby that recently gave the municipality almost 30 million euros for housing and a new city entrance.
The mayor raises another argument. “The Zwolle Region (to which Meppel is affiliated, ed.) Also lobbies for tons per year. You can only tick something off after a number of years. A fourth platform, for example,” he refers to the 35 million euros that the cabinet will release to the to solve rail problems between Meppel and Zwolle.
The city council will vote on the additional subsidy in two weeks.