Mayor Bernd Roks (48) of Halderberge is resigning. The VVD director unexpectedly announced his departure on Wednesday evening during the New Year’s meeting. He became mayor of Halderberge in 2020. Roks says he has achieved his goals. “Job done, c’est fini.” According to sources, the mayor is resigning due to a dispute with the council.
At the New Year’s meeting, Roks said that he had fulfilled his self-set mission. When he took office almost five years ago, he had three concrete goals: improving the quality of life, restoring peace to the municipal council and renovating religious heritage. And according to Roks, we succeeded.
Bernd Roks, born and raised in Etten-Leur, settled in Oudenbosch in 2020. Previously, he was a councilor in Etten-Leur, Hilvarenbeek and IJsselstein, among others. Roks’ departure comes as a complete surprise to many people.
The mayor personally renovated one of the oldest houses in Oudenbosch for living purposes, a stone’s throw from the town hall. And in the middle of the religious heritage in the village.
Poor condition heritage
Roks, with his penchant for odd jobs, saw it as his mission to breathe new life into the area around the basilica, the chapel of Saint Louis and the former monastery of Saint Anna. In December he raised the alarm again about the poor condition of the ‘Sint Pieter’ in the village. “If more money doesn’t come soon, I’ll have to put a fence around it,” Roks emphasized.
As mayor, he also expressed his concerns about the toxic trains by his municipality. In addition, together with former mayor Han van Midden van Roosendaal, he achieved national fame with the police project ‘Mietwagen’. Hundreds of luxury German rental cars, which are often misused by criminals, were taken off the road.
Traffic drama Oud Gastel
The action followed a low point in Bernd Roks’ mayoralty: a traffic drama. On September 2, 2022, two mothers and two children (8 and 10) from Bosschenhoofd died in a traffic accident in Oud Gastel. 27-year-old Omar E. from Roosendaal drove into the car of the four victims at very high speed in a rented Mercedes.
An accident with a huge impact on the community. Mayor Bernd Roks, himself the father of two young children, did not hide his anger. “Our municipality must be a safe place for our residents and our children in particular,” he told Omroep Brabant at the time.
Nuisance bought out
Roks made short work of two houses from which drugs and stabbings had caused nuisance for years. He bought the houses on behalf of the municipality to put an end to the nuisance.
The only ‘creative way’ to save public money and deal with limited police capacity. “We want to invest as much as possible in quality of life. Then as mayor you have to take a step forward and think out of the box,” says Roks.
Threats
His actions led to threats against the mayor. A former resident of one of the buildings threatened to burn down Roks’ house. The mayor’s home in the main street of Oudenbosch had permanent camera surveillance.
Last weekend, Bernd Roks gave the go-ahead for celebrating the 750th anniversary of Oud Gastel and Oudenbosch. It will be his successor who can clean up the decorations at the end of this year.