Editing Farum Municipality (section)

=== Farum scandal ===
The longtime mayor [[Peter Brixtofte]] was involved in a financial scandal that became the focus of national scrutiny in 2002. He was forced to resign after being implicated in a variety of corruption. He had been mayor since 1985 and had presided over what first appeared as a successful revitalization of the community with extended public services, including the establishment of a large sports arena, under-cover grants to the local football association, and "well-being trips", free holiday trips to the Mediterranean for senior citizens. Brixtofte's policy of forcing the [[unemployment|unemployed]] to work in return for benefits was first controversial but has since become a nationwide rule. Another way of creating funds was to sell off public services and [[lease]] them back. In June 2006 Brixtofte was sentenced to two years prison.

After Brixtofte's economic schemes went bust, Farum had to raise its municipal [[tax]] drastically. The neighbouring municipality of Værløse protested against being merged with Farum, as the government had proposed. Eventually the merger took place but a unique arrangement was granted, allowing the two parts of the new municipality to maintain separate tax rates, and a special government subsidy of 2,000 million [[Danish krone|DKK]] (350 million [[USD]]), paid over the next 15 years. Other municipalities with greater economic difficulties protested against this.<ref>[https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/politik/article.jhtml?articleID=254966 ''Mayors feel betrayed'', DR news 22 May 2005 (Danish, Google cache)]{{dead link|date=December 2016 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Also, a newly closed air force air base (Flyvestation Værløse) was given to Furesø municipality to own and perhaps turn into a recreational area.

Farum's last mayor was Lars Carpens who had replaced Brixtofte in 2002. Both were members of [[Venstre (Denmark)|Venstre]] (Liberal Party).
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