Councilor Nette Kruzenga did not attend a single meeting of the Midden-Groningen municipal council for three months. She does receive compensation.
Kruzenga sits on the municipal council on behalf of BBB-LMG (BBBondgenoot van Leefbaar Midden Groningen). In the March 2022 elections, her party won six seats. The other five party members split off shortly afterwards. Since then, Kruzenga has been sitting alone in the city council.
There she regularly spoke out very critically about the policy of the municipal council. Until three months ago. Her last council meeting was on September 28. Since then, the city council has met on ten evenings. She missed all these meetings. In addition, Kruzenga will be taking a sabbatical from her council work from January. “I want to use those four months for reflection.”
Private circumstances
Kruzenga does not want to make public what exactly is going on. “Just keep it to private circumstances.” She is involved in an unpleasant issue that makes her prefer not to attend public meetings of the city council.
Friction in the city council
What also plays a role, according to her, is the atmosphere in the council. Kruzenga has been in bad terms with the rest of her colleagues in the city council for years. She was regularly extremely critical of plans that others agreed with. She says about that herself. “I see everything” and “I am one crying in the wilderness.” Many other council members do not take her seriously and find her a troublemaker who just shouts.
Kruzenga is convinced that the municipality of Midden-Groningen is wasting money on certain projects. According to her, the new changing rooms for football club HS88 turned out to be much more expensive than necessary and when purchasing a rotten tooth at the entrance to Hoogezand, the municipality offered much more than was necessary.
“But when I say something about it, I get barked at by the rest. I feel very oppressed.”
Compensation
Despite the fact that she has not attended a meeting in three months, Kruzenga does receive compensation for her council work. The amount depends on the population of the municipality. In Central Groningen, this compensation amounts to 1668.76 euros gross per month. She says that this leaves her with about a thousand euros a month. Moreover, 1349 people voted for her in March 2022.
“You may think: she doesn’t do anything, but in a way I do quite a lot.” Kruzenga says she regularly sends emails to the other party leaders about issues that do not suit her. “And this council is throwing away almost four million euros. What do you think is worse?”
When asked, another council member said: “I haven’t seen any message from her in the past three months.”
Mayor’s response
Mayor Adriaan Hoogendoorn does not want to comment on the issue. When asked about the councilor’s ‘sabbatical’, he says: “I can neither confirm nor deny it, because Nette has not (yet) formally informed me about this.”