The new Municipal Executive of Assen will be installed in about two weeks. Mirjam Pauwels, VVD alderman in the Drenthe capital for the past three years, will not be part of it. She does not live in the municipality. This has been tolerated in recent years, but the new coalition put a stop to it.
It is sour that as an alderman, who deals with events just before the start of the TT week, you have to say goodbye, 50-year-old Pauwels admits in the Radio Drenthe program Cassata. “I am very, very sorry. I started in Assen just after the TT Festival in 2019 and the past two years it was canceled because of corona, so I did not experience it. But I hope that behind the scenes, a bit incognito, can come and have a look. Maybe it’s also nice to walk around completely free of all responsibilities.”
Mirjam Pauwels’ career as an alderman started in 2012 in her ‘own’ municipality De Wolden. She lives there in the hamlet of Hees and in the meantime succeeded Liesbeth Koster. At that time, Pauwels was barely a year in the Provincial Council. “It went very quickly indeed. I was also surprised that I was asked, but apparently they were confident that I could do it. My environment also told me that I had to do it, because it suited me.”
That turns out to be true. Pauwels calls De Wolden “a fantastic municipality”. In 2016 she was awarded the title of Drents Politician of the Year. “I’m still very proud of that,” she says.
When she is asked to transfer to Assen in 2019, where there is a governance crisis, she sees a new challenge and takes on it. “I was in my seventh year in De Wolden and had already decided that that was my last term. Then I was asked for Assen. That is the place where I come from and have lived for 27 years, so I wanted to pick up that glove. “
Moving from a rural community to the city was a fun challenge for her. “Assen has a very different dynamic, with many more organizations and political challenges.” Pauwels was given finance, economy, city center, events and real estate in his portfolio. After three years, she felt she was not ready yet, but the new coalition parties Plop and Assen Centraal made a point of her residence outside the municipality. The VVD party then chose to put Martin Rasker forward as alderman candidate, at the expense of Pauwels.
The chairman, secretary and treasurer of the local VVD board recently resigned out of dissatisfaction with this decision. The native Assense herself also finds it very unfortunate that it ends for her. “I have worked hard for three years under quite difficult circumstances. We have had a pretty turbulent period in the past three years. First a management crisis, then a financial crisis and then the corona crisis. I really would have liked to continue working on a number of files, but it turned out differently.”