Werner ten Kate is going to leave Hoogeveen politics. The alderman of the current business council is making a transfer to the municipality of Hardenberg in the province of Overijssel, where he will hold the same position.
Ten Kate has been active in Hoogeveen since 2020. In that year, the existing board consisting of Municipal Interests, CDA and ChristenUnie fell apart. The three parties announced that they no longer had faith in the collaboration and the aldermen threw in the towel. Not much later, a business college was appointed, of which Ten Kate is a member, together with Janita Tabak, Derk Reneman and Jan Zwiers.
“I have experienced this term of office as exceptionally special,” says the alderman. “You don’t often experience being part of a business lecture. When I was hired, I was told the message ‘now you have to save Hoogeveen’. I hope I was able to contribute a bit to that.”
He experienced the most ‘legendary moment’, as he describes it himself, in Nieuwlande. “The challenge there was to get a new board for MFC De Opsteker. As a college, we had promised to attend a bingo evening in the village hall if we succeeded. And what do you think happened? I was able to make people happy there with meat packages as a prize. I look back on that with great pleasure.”
He will continue to work for Hoogeveen in the coming days. He will be installed as alderman on 24 May.