Veøy


Veøy is a former municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. The municipality existed from 1838 until its dissolution in 1964. It initially consisted of all of the present-day Vestnes Municipality, as well as the southern part of Molde Municipality and the northern part of Rauma Municipality. Vestnes Municipality was only part of Veøy for a few months in 1838 before it was made into a separate municipality. In 1964, the municipality was split between Molde and Rauma municipalities. Veøy Municipality was named after the island of Veøya, the administrative centre, where the main church for the municipality was located.

Name

The island and municipality was named Veøy. It was the religious center of the whole Romsdal region and the name is a compound of vé which means "sanctuary" and øy which means "island", thus a holy island. The name was historically spelled Veø.

History

Just before 8:00 p.m. on 22 February 1756, a landslide with a volume of — the largest known landslide in Norway in historic time — traveled at high speed from a height of on the side of the mountain Tjellafjellet into the Langfjorden from Veøy. The slide generated three megatsunamis in the immediate area in the Langfjorden and the Eresfjorden with heights of. Damaging waves reached Veøy, where, although reduced in size, they washed inland above normal flood levels.
The parish of Veøy was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838. The western district of Veøy was separated in the fall of 1838 to become Vestnes Municipality. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1964, the islands of Sekken and Veøya as well as the Nesjestranda district on the mainland north of the Langfjorden were incorporated into the newly enlarged Molde Municipality. The remainder of Veøy on the south side of the Langfjorden and the Vågstranda area were merged with the small municipalities of Eid, Grytten, Hen, and Voll to form the new Rauma Municipality.

Government

All municipalities in Norway, including Veøy, are responsible for primary education, outpatient health services, senior citizen services, unemployment and other social services, zoning, economic development, and municipal roads. The municipality is governed by a municipal council of elected representatives, which in turn elects a mayor.

Municipal council

The municipal council of Veøy was made up of 21 representatives that were elected to four year terms. The party breakdown of the final municipal council was as follows: