A petition against the erecting of a bust of former Brussels Mayor Yvan Mayeur at City Hall - a tradition dating back to 1830 - obtained its 15,000th signature on Sunday night. Launched two weeks ago, the petition calls on the city’s Council of Aldermen and Municipal Council not to approve “this odious spending of 60,000 euros” because of the Samusocial Scandal.
Yvan Mayeur resigned as mayor in June last after his handling of the Samusocial, an agency that cares for the homeless, was called into question. He is suspected, along with the former head of the agency, Pascale Peraïta, of siphoning off two-thirds of the budget earmarked for the administrators in 2014-2015.
The authors of the petition, which obtained 5,000 signatures in the first 48 hours after its launch, say the ex-mayor should not be given a place of honour at City Hall and are asking the Brussels authorities to re-channel the amount set aside for his bust to non-governmental organizations. The petition is scheduled to be presented to the Brussels authorities at the next meeting of the Muncipal Council, on September 11.
In early August, Brussels alderman in charge of finance, Geoffroy Coomans (Reformist Movement Party) had confirmed that the tradition of erecting a bust to each past mayor would also be followed in Mayeur’s case.
The marble bust of Mayeur’s predecessor, Freddy Thielemans, mayor from 2000 to 2013, had cost 67,000 euros.
The Brussels Times
