An easy job, to put it in football terms. Eric van Oosterhout did not have to think long about whether he wants to continue for another six years as mayor of Emmen. The same went for the city council and a request for an extension is now in The Hague. In the run-up to the expected swearing in of the Emmer mayor in March next year, a look back.
It is very simple for Van Oosterhout. Being mayor is just a really fun job. “No day is the same, it can only go from a smile to a tear and vice versa. I once wrote a column about it entitled ‘French fries with whipped cream’. Everything really comes together.”
In the second place, the job is not yet done for him, according to Van Oosterhout. The Netherlands has been tumbling from one crisis to another for two years now. Corona, energy costs, housing, inflation, angry farmers and the reception of asylum seekers and refugees. Things that the municipality still has their hands full with and which Van Oosterhout does not want to run away from. The second half of his first term, which started in 2017, is in sharp contrast to the first half.
Emmen had just completed the immense Atalanta project, which included the relocation of the theater and zoo and the new Raadhuisplein. After that, it took a while to find a new agenda for the college. From 2020, however, the work found the municipality, starting with the corona crisis, followed by other misery.
“I can’t remember a time when so many problems piled up in succession,” said Van Oosterhout. Crises put pressure on a society and sharpen mutual discussions. Fuses get shorter and opinions get louder.
Van Oosterhout has not missed it either. “It can get pretty hard in society. If I don’t get my point, I immediately blow: those kinds of sounds are sometimes reviewed. It seems that sometimes we are no longer able to listen to each other .” It doesn’t make solving the problems any easier, he knows.