RESPONSE OF TRUST COMMITTEE TO ARTICLE IN NEWSPAPER DE LIMBURGER

On April 17, the Confidential Committee held a regular sounding board meeting with the mayor. The committee unanimously concluded that our mayor and president of the City Council is functioning satisfactorily and with good and integrity. That the SP committee member present three days later filed an integrity complaint with the governor against this same mayor, we find very strange and not appropriate to an open and honest way of governing. The commission on confidence was not informed about this and had to learn about it afterwards via via.

We then agreed that the chair of the trust committee, Ms. Nettie Paul-Ubachs (Burgerbelangen Kerkrade), would act as a point of contact for questions about the response sent by the governor. In this letter, the governor said that there was no question of a breach of integrity and it was not up to him to find anything about this, but that this was up to the council. At the Kerkrade municipality, no one knows the content of the complaint. Not the trust committee nor the mayor himself. The content is apparently known to Dagblad de Limburger. We emphatically distance ourselves from this lack of integrity.

To get an explanation as to why behind the SP's letter, we invited the SP to come and give an explanation in the confidence committee. The SP's group chairman, even after offering other dates, did not want or could not attend to explain.

The above explanation was also given by the president, Nettie Paul-Ubachs, to the journalist of Dagblad de Limburger. However, the latter has chosen to omit the explanation, which is very important to us, from the article. This creates a one-sided and colored picture of the situation.