RE: [RR:227] Proposal to set up a local action committee covering Rondeberg Road Extension servitude
lou...@goodhorsesense.co.za
My knee jerk reaction is to say yes and no all in the same breath. Yes there are advantages to your suggestion but no I am not living in a complex back in town again where I need my neighbours permission to go to the loo. I think this type of subject requires a face to face discussion rather than ten million backwards and forwards emails of miscommunications and misunderstandings.
Regards
Louise
-original message-
Subject: [RR:227] Proposal to set up a local action committee covering Rondeberg Road Extension servitude
From: Mal Morrow <malm...@gmail.com>
Date: 07/04/2010 12:37 pm
Hello people -
This is the second of my two emails. Here I deal with the 'vision thing'.
Fighting the road has been, pardon my bizarreness, fun! I've learned a lot
about making things happen and I've learned a lot about you. I hope I
haven't pissed too many of you off with my control-freak attitude.
But all things come to an end; eventually we'll figure out how to sort out
the quarry and the road. We're not there yet, perhaps not for a few months
yet; but I scent victory.
After that ... what?
There will always be another challenge in our area. Farmers and
smallholders must organise themselves in ways that city-dwellers need not.
We must consider amenities like the road, yes; but also:
- security and policing,
- rates and taxes,
- land use, departures, and rezoning,
- labour regulations and their local effect,
- other government interventions,
- land and property values,
- sharing of ideas and objectives,
- solving community problems,
- sending delegates to 'higher bodies' like government committees and
Community Policing Forums,
- local development objectives, and a kind of shared approach to what we
hope the area will become in the near, medium and distant future.
Please can you give me the nod to set up a convening assembly of people to
establish a local action committee that might consider and discuss these
sorts of things. Here are some headings for discussion before we go any
further.
*Residents', land-owners' or rate-payers' association*
A residents' committee would involve anyone who lives in the area, but who
might not own where they live. Land-owners' committee and rate-payers'
association - much the same thing - would involve people who own the
properties in the area, even though the might not live there.
I propose that we start a residents' association, with a land-owners'
sub-committee some time in the future.
*Initial agenda*
Any of the above items, and many others, could be on our initial agenda. In
order to prevent this from getting too demanding, here is what I propose as
an initial agenda:
1. Adopt a permanent constitution,
2. Pursue the quarry question,
3. Set up some sort of management and funding structure to maintain the
road.
The second two items - well all of us know about those from previous
discussion and work. The first item needs a bit more expansion. The goal
is to establish the committee not to solve the second two items and then to
dissolve, but to organise ourselves permanently so that future issues will
automatically be referred to the committee as the permanent forum of
deliberation. At a minimum this'll require us to register a simple written
constitution covering powers and responsibilities, and to elect an
executive.
By accepting a permanent committee, you must be aware that it will put the
community 'under rules'. In the initial stages the committee will be
advisory and representative, and won't have any compulsive powers. So the
committee can't force you to pay money, for example 8-) But it will exist
as your representative body, and this will mean that you may not always like
what the committee does in your name. Say, for example, the committee sends
delegates to a quarry Monitoring Committee. The committee must have the
power to make agreements covering the quarry. You might not like those
agreements. Obviously you can 'sanction' the executive and elect new
delegates! And hence the committee will definitely be democratic, according
to its constitution, so that you can make it do what you want in a
democratic fashion.
*And if you agree about this?*
If I get a sense that the road people think this committee would be a good
idea, I'm going to do the following:
1. Write an agenda for an inaugural meeting of all residents, and
2. Set up the inaugural meeting at a time no earlier than a month from
now.
Not everybody in the neighbourhood likes to write on this list, or are even
members of the list. So I'll make an effort to call people and get
direction about this.
Please write back and give me your suggestions and comments.
Sincerely yours,
Mal Morrow
Land-owner, resident in portion 56 of portion 22 Zouterivier, PO Box 83,
Philadelphia 7304
C: +27 (84) 9944364
W: +27 (21) 4171849
F: +27 (86) 5114459
E: malm...@gmail.com
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Mal Morrow
lou...@goodhorsesense.co.za
You have my mandate with regards to the road and quarry issues, its the others listed on your email that I would like absolute clarity on. I totally agree that there should be some organisation regarding an issue where we are all on the same page.
Regards
Louise
-original message-
Subject: Re: [RR:229] Proposal to set up a local action committee covering Rondeberg Road Extension servitude
From: Mal Morrow <malm...@gmail.com>
Date: 07/04/2010 2:48 pm
Hi Louise, all -
Well, it's precisely because I don't have any preference as to the limits of
this sort of organisation, that I want to start off with a very limited
mandate. I certainly thought the road and the quarry were sufficient items
to be getting on with.
We don't *need* an organisation. But without one, we will only have the
guarantee of our mutually expressed intention to help the community at
large, if one or other of us personally takes some action when dealing with
the road or the quarry, or any other issue for that matter. Without an
organisation, we are, technically speaking, unconstrained by the opinions of
the others. That situation may be ideal for some purposes, but it does not
seem ideal when it comes to the road or the quarry. Also, it will be less
easy to make ourselves heard on the Monitoring Committee, as we won't have a
community mandate.
Tx && rgds,
Mal
On 7 April 2010 14:14, <lou...@goodhorsesense.co.za> wrote:
> Hi Mal
>
> My knee jerk reaction is to say yes and no all in the same breath. Yes
> there are advantages to your suggestion but no I am not living in a complex
> back in town again where I need my neighbours permission to go to the loo. I
> think this type of subject requires a face to face discussion rather than
> ten million backwards and forwards emails of miscommunications and
> misunderstandings.
>
> Regards
> Louise
>
>
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