“There are people who say, initially he looks a bit boring.” With that comment, Jan Seton started his career as mayor in the municipality of Borger-Odoorn ten years ago. But according to Niek Wind, then chairman of the confidential committee, those people missed the shelf. “Then they have to look a little better, I think, because that was absolutely misinterpreted.”
In addition to Jan Seton, there were 48 others who sent a letter of application at the time. Yet one jumped out immediately. “Reading letters was quite a job,” Wind can remember. “But Jan Seton stood out.” The then 44-year-old former alderman from the city of Groningen not only had experience, but also a love for the peat and sand area. “That felt good.”
Today it is ten years ago that Jan Seton started as mayor in Borger-Odoorn. It became anything but a quiet start. “When I started, I immediately fell into the windmill discussion. I spoke very angry people, not only about the windmills, but also about the way the government dealt with it.”
And so Seton went into the villages, where he had to talk to people heated in halls. “And at different times he just joined people’s homes,” says Wind. “At the kitchen table, with a cup of coffee or tea, to really listen.”
And that worked, because Seton describes the conversations at kitchen tables during the discussion about the windmills as the ‘most beautiful’ table. “That went deep into emotion, you want to feel where people’s pain is.”
Anyone who thinks Seton is always only serious does not know him yet. Just ask Janny Hofsteenge, a councilor in Borger-Odoorn for 27 years. “We once did a pub quiz as a team outing,” she laughs. “And Jan? Blood fanatic! I didn’t expect that from him.” Seton has to laugh about it himself. “Sometimes people are shocked by my competition. But we won, that saves!”
Wind also experienced the somewhat looser side of the mayor, during a casual meeting on vacation in Scotland. “We were suddenly close together, we agreed, went for something to eat and took a walk on the beach. Then we had a good, personal conversation.”
Not all memories are cheerful. One moment Seton is even crystal clear, the fire at Destillery Turv in Exloo. “I have never seen so many fire engines together, and that someone was killed was of course terrible.”
The fire left a hole in the middle of the village. But the village picked up and something new was created, the hall cover. “A wonderful interpretation,” says Seton proudly. “An asset to Exloo.”
Whether there is a new board period for Seton, if the current ends, he does not know. “I always said that after ten years you have to see what you want to do. I have never mapped out my career, this work also just came my way. When the next step is, I don’t know. But I am having a great time here now.”