Five of the seven new Alkmaar aldermen do not live in Alkmaar: how bad is that?

National legislation states that, in principle, aldermen must live within the municipality in which they work. However, the municipal council can choose to grant dispensation to aldermen for the fact that they live elsewhere. This has to be done every year. The council has now done this for the first time and all seven aldermen were sworn in last Thursday.

Being able to get to a big fire quickly

Last week, the Independent Party Alkmaar (OPA) did ask the council questions about the living situation of the aldermen. Especially Mulder’s. OPA states that ‘it has understood from the explanatory notes to the law that the legislator considers it important that the first loco lives in Alkmaar’. “This is to be able to adequately replace the mayor in his absence,” the party said.

According to OPA, ‘living far outside the city can have consequences for picket services that sometimes rotate in the college’. “In the event of a major fire, a deputy mayor must be able to be on site quickly,” the faction explains.

Julien van Ostaijen is a lecturer in Public Administration at Tilburg University and specialized in aldermanship. He says that it is ‘not for nothing’ that the law states that aldermen must live within the municipality.

But, he says, the council can decide that there are serious reasons for appointing an alderman from outside the municipality. “If the parties believe that this would be a good thing, that is up to the council.”

Pros and cons

According to Van Ostaijen, there may be disadvantages to hiring aldermen from outside the municipality. For example, in terms of recognisability, involvement and the time it takes to train someone. “Some residents like it when an alderman is a familiar face within their municipality,” he says.

In addition, residents may feel that an alderman is less involved if he is not part of their community: “You can also show involvement from outside, but it is easier if you already live or have worked within that municipality.”

Finally, according to Van Ostaijen, it can take longer before an alderman from the outside is well trained, ‘although that of course also depends on the extent to which someone already knows a municipality well’.

On the other hand, according to the teacher, there are also ‘enough situations to consider’ when it is right to appoint an alderman from outside the municipality. “In municipalities where, for example, there has been a lot of hassle in the past, aldermen are often appointed from outside because they have more distance.”

But the ‘increasing weight of the aldermanship’ is also a good argument, in his opinion, to look elsewhere: “Especially in smaller municipalities, the pond for fishing out can be small. Then it happens more often that parties can really select someone, not on where someone comes from.”

‘It doesn’t matter where your bed is’

The Aldermen’s Association – an interest group for aldermen – sees the statutory provision stating that aldermen must live within the municipality in which they work, preferably disappear completely. “We understand that as a councilor, as a representative of the people, you have to live in the municipality,” says a spokesperson. “But as an alderman it doesn’t really matter where you live.”

Aldermen have it “increasingly difficult”, according to the spokesman. According to her, this is partly due to the increased number of tasks of aldermen – ‘while there is actually not enough money for that’.

The profession is also increasingly complex, she says. “Municipalities are faced with increasingly difficult issues. They require a lot of substantive knowledge. Whether you can implement it properly has nothing to do with where your bed is.”

To invest

It should also not matter whether the first replacement for the mayor does not live in the municipality, according to the spokesperson. “In large municipalities it can also take a long time before an alderman is somewhere. In addition, there are rules for how quickly you must be able to be somewhere.” According to the spokesperson, residents can ‘trust’ that this topic has been discussed within the coalition’.

The extent to which it can cause problems that an alderman does not live within the municipality, according to Van Ostaijen, ‘completely depends on the attitude of the alderman’.

“Are you willing to invest a lot in your work and be present in the municipality – not only when you really have to? Then it shouldn’t be a problem at all.” He emphasizes that ‘in the end it is all up to the council’.