1/2 Youngest mayor Teun Heldens.
“It already feels like a warm bath.” 30-year-old Teun Heldens is very much looking forward to working as mayor of the municipality of Heeze-Leende. The VVD member from Meijel in North Limburg was nominated on Monday evening as Paul Verhoeven’s successor.
With the upcoming appointment, Heldens will also become the youngest mayor in the Netherlands. Boy Scholtze, mayor of Drimmelen, will present him with a red lantern at the installation. This is the trophy that comes with this status. Heldens doesn’t say much: “You also have the tallest and the shortest mayor. I prefer people to say that I am the best or nicest mayor.”
“I got to know Heeze-Leende as a very nice municipality.”
“Besides, this has been going on all my life,” he adds. “When I was sixteen, I became a member of the VVD. As a seventeen-year-old boy, I was already on a committee in the Limburg municipality of Peel en Maas. At the age of twenty I was elected to the municipal council with preferential votes and four years later I received the most votes.”
Heldens also made his mark in the Provincial Council of Limburg: he was a member of Parliament for four years. Since September this year he has been a temporary councilor in Nederweert, Limburg. In short, age doesn’t matter to him.
Heldens believes that cooperation is much more important. In that respect, he believes, he is doing well in his new municipality. “I’ve had a good look around over the past three months. I attended the Brabantsedag, among other things, and noticed a great sense of community everywhere. I have already come to know Heeze-Leende as a very nice municipality. It just feels good.”
“Being mayor is not just a job.”
“Yet it is quite something when, as a thirty-year-old, you place your future in the hands of a confidential committee of a municipal council. She determines what your life will look like. Being mayor is not just a job.”
Heldens can benefit from encouraging words from his colleague Boy Scholtze. “I have actually only had positive reactions. It has given Drimmelen extra attention. I notice that residents are proud that our municipality has the youngest mayor.”
“Mayor of a fantastic municipality and that is regardless of age.”
Scholtze is not sad that he will be handing over the red lantern: “I am happy that I will not wear this title for too long, because that means that more young people will become mayor. That’s only a good thing! I am mayor of a fantastic municipality and that is regardless of age.”
Words that, if the omens do not deceive, Teun Heldens will also be able to pronounce in some time.
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Boy Scholtze was the youngest mayor last year, here you can read how he felt about becoming mayor