In Lier, singer and presenter Walter Grootaers (65) said goodbye to local politics on Monday evening during the (digital) council meeting. Grootaers retires as alderman and councilor for Open VLD, after a career of 26 years.
During this legislature, Grootaers was competent as alderman for urban development, the environment and agriculture, but had previously announced that he would probably not be taking off the ride. He is now making way for his successor, fellow party member Thierry Suetens, a little earlier than expected.
In 1994, Grootaers stepped into the local Lierse politics for the then Lier Meer Possible (LMM), which subsequently entered into a cartel with the VLD in 2000. In 2006, Grootaers also effectively switched to the liberals.
He was a municipal councilor all those years and from 2001 to 2006 and again from 2013 to the present day, with various powers such as sports, festivities, tourism, urban development and the environment.
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