Mayor Luc Winants (CDA) of Venray resigns. He will resign from his position on February 1, or sooner as soon as there is an observer.
In a statement, Winants says that “the confidential committee of the city council and I have a different picture of how administrative innovation should be shaped in Venray”.
The regional broadcaster 1Limburg links the mayor’s resignation to a political riot in Venray earlier this year. In addition, the Alderman for Land Affairs had to resign because he had purchased 37 hectares of land from the Water Board as a private person. The alderman charged the suspicion of a conflict of interest, also because he would subsequently have collected the subsidies for the nature development of the special nature reserve.
Mayor Winants caused a stir by saying, in anticipation of an integrity investigation, that he dared to put his hands in the fire for the controversial alderman. At the end of June, the city council passed a motion of rejection against Winants.
It can go fast. When he took office two years ago, the confidential committee called the new mayor “a powerful connector with extensive administrative experience and an amiable, charming and charismatic person with a sense of humour”.
Rapist and miscreant
At the end of 2017, Winants also announced that he was stepping down as mayor of Brunssum. He named then the “ongoing administrative crises in Brunssum” as the main reason. In the South Limburg municipality there was a lot of friction between the coalition and the opposition. It all went wrong when Jo Palmen was appointed alderman. As a private person, Palmen not only fought legal battles with the municipality over a piece of land; he also didn’t shy away from regularly cursing at council meetings. He called other local politicians “terrorist”, “rapist” and “”vèrkeskop”.
Winants stated at the end of 2017 that “as mayor he can no longer guarantee integrity in Brunssum.”
Now he notes “with pain in my heart” that the confidential committee in Venray wants to get rid of him. The committee announces that it will start a procedure to find a new mayor after the municipal elections in March. “I have indicated that I want to contribute to that idea in the interest of Venray,” he said winners.
Martin Leenders of the local party Collaboration Venray reacts briefly on behalf of the confidential committee. He says, “We may have misjudged at the time.”
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