Mayor Frank Dales van Velsen came to drink tea today with Velsen-Noorders Jan and Jopie Nijman and their neighbor Gé van der Lem. How does that work if citizens who do not feel seen can put their concerns to him at the kitchen table? Dales: “I see a lot of solidarity here, social structures. Perhaps with the municipality as a common enemy, but it is there.”
A piercing bell rings while Jopie is still muttering ‘I wonder’. Mayor Frank Dales, this time not in a suit but in a blue hoodie, enters the Velsen-Nordic house on Duinvlietstraat with apple pie. He doesn’t get a chance to sit quietly.
While Jopie is still taking the crockery out of the cupboard, she is already throwing it at him: “Gerard couldn’t come today, he has fled from Velsen-Noord to Beverwijk – fled! Because he couldn’t stand it here anymore. Yes, I have to tell like it is.” Jopie’s husband Jan is there today and so is neighbor Gé. The three seventies have lived in Velsen-Noord all their lives.
The mayor is here today at Jopie’s invitation. Last week she asked him over coffee at the meeting in the neighborhood center De Stek about the future of it shelter vessel with thousands of asylum seekers. In letters and opposite NH News she said recently why that is, that Velsen-Noord feels like ‘the drain’ of the region. Jopie: “The arrival of the asylum ship was the last straw.”
“We don’t need presents. Money has to go to a kind of master plan to really improve Velsen-Noord”
She looks the mayor in the eye and says: “I thought: just turning against everything doesn’t help, so I invited you – oh no, I was allowed to call you – for this conversation.”
Although, conversation: for the first 45 minutes Dales sits still while Jopie, sometimes supported by her husband Jan and then somewhat flattened again by neighbor Gé, cuts and shaves the municipality. All sorts of things come to the fore: the ‘missed opportunity’ of not buying the land around the Gildenspoor, tree felling and unkept flowerbeds, to where, according to Jopie, the core of the problem lies:
“The relationship between immigrants and the Dutch is no longer correct here. And that is due to the many cheap social rents. That must change, not today, not tomorrow: yesterday. And another thousand asylum seekers arrived in September. And the Gildenbuurt, which must be demolished and rebuilt.”
The sharpest edges
Later today, Dales tweets about it: “Having coffee with residents of Velsen-Noord. Involved and emotionally connected to their place of residence. Speaking openly and confrontationally, but with respect towards each other. Velsen-Noord deserves attention from the municipality and housing association, but also from all their residents . Let’s work together!”
When the sharp edges of the emotional Velsen-Nordic barrage are off with the second cup of tea, the mayor speaks more often:
“We don’t disagree at all: I also see the problems, I don’t flatten them out at all. If you ask me ‘which neighborhood deserves attention?’. Then I say Velsen-Noord on one, IJmuiden Zeewijk on two .”
“We have also seen that there is a lot of anger and wondered, why is that?”
“But I also see many beautiful things in Velsen-Noord. For example, a beautiful community center has been built. And I see a lot of solidarity, social structures here. Perhaps with the municipality as a common enemy, but it is there.”
This is how the morning goes as you would expect in advance. But trust in the municipality may then come back on foot, it has already gone on horseback. Jopie: “Now what? We’re talking now, but I don’t want to be left empty-handed.” She would prefer that the mayor drops everything out of his hands and finishes the A4 with points. “It’s our turn now!”
Dales: “I can’t make a deal here and now. What I’m saying now may sound crazy: because of the asylum ship, Velsen-Noord is perhaps more in the picture of the city council. We have also seen that there is a lot of anger and wondered, why is that? And what are we going to do about it? We will spend money that we receive as compensation for the ship, for example, on security, combating drugs among young people and a coordinator to tackle Velsen-noord as a project.”
Boas, pharmacy and the bus
The three Velsen-Noorders like that: “That seems good to us. We don’t need presents. Money has to go to a kind of master plan to really improve Velsen-Noord.”
The fact that the mayor would not have listened at all to concerns from Velsen-Noord, Dales does dispute, when he puts down the fork after his last bite of the apple pie he brought himself. “When the asylum ship arrived, people had all kinds of concerns. For example, about safety, so there were boas, or concerns about the queue at the pharmacy, so we solved that.
It is the dilemma in which the municipality sometimes finds itself, the mayor notes. Whatever they do, they’re doing it wrong. Dales: “When the ship arrived, a lady did not want ‘thousand’ asylum seekers to walk through their village. I negotiated with the COA that a bus would arrive. When I met her again, she said: ‘Now a big bus through the village’. Well.”
Jopie remains behind in despair after the conversation. “Would this have helped?” she wonders. But the mayor is confident: “At the end of my term, in five years’ time, I will come again for coffee and then we will have a completely different conversation.” Jopie: “We’ll see.”