My name is Oliver Thissen, I’m 44 years old and your candidate for the centre of Gangelt (Ward Gangelt I).
Gangelt is my home town. My family comes from here and I grew up here. After a few years in Geilenkirchen, I have now been living in the north of Gangelt with my wife and daughter for more than ten years. So I never really lost sight of Gangelt.
Professionally, I work as an IT architect, designing and developing software systems for the insurance industry. In my free time, too, I’m interested in all things digital. It is becoming ever more important to keep both the opportunities and the risks in view: digital public services and smart power grids on one side; total surveillance, disinformation and the unchecked electricity and water consumption of artificial intelligence and the data centres it requires on the other.
I joined Bündnis 90/Die Grünen shortly before the 2025 federal election. The increasingly obvious shift to the right and the growing tendency to kick down should not be accepted. I firmly believe that a society as a whole is better off when everyone is doing well – when nobody has to pretend to be someone else, and when everyone has every opportunity to take part in society. Of all the democratic parties, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen best represents my convictions.
In local politics, I’m currently particularly concerned with the traffic situation since the redesign of Gangelt’s town centre, and with the plans for a data centre on the business park: an area the size of 30 football pitches, an electricity demand greater than that of the whole of Gangelt, and water consumption of hundreds of thousands of cubic metres a year. What price are we as a municipality prepared to pay when droughts are increasing here too and some people are talking about an “energy crisis”?
My ward covers these streets:
- Bruchstraße
- Burgstraße
- Borheggenstraße
- Freihof
- Heinsberger Straße
- Katharina-Kasper-Straße
- Kirchstraße
- Markt
- Sittarder Straße
- Wallstraße
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