COMMENTS FROM RESIDENTS RE DISPUTE - St Francis Bay Residents Association

We would like to thank you for all your hard work and dedication. Hopefully this will encourage change.

Mike and Pam Almendro

The whole web site is very impressive, as is the work on the beach. I do, however, have an itch I have to scratch: the unit of length is the “metre”. It could be that your webmaster has an American dictionary, as it is incorrectly spelled, “meter” consistently throughout.

Dear Paddy,
Thank you for your latest ‘Rate Payers’info.

I have picked up the following quote in the Caravan and Outdoor Life magazine which may be of interest,

Quote from Lyyn & Kate Findlay,Walkerville.

” The people take such pride in their town (Oudtshoorn) , and it was interesting to hear that it is run by the ratepayers not the council. This should happen in more towns, as the money is well spent and every penny accounted for “ !!!!.

I apologise if this in fact already known.

Best wishes,
Barry Wild

What will happen if the municipality takes up the challenge & litigates against our action to withhold rates? What costs will incur & who will be responsible?

Geoff & Erica Knight
5 Laura Rd
St Francis Bay
6312
Tel (042) 294-1021
Cell Erica (082) 261-1329
Cell Geoff (076)017-6445

Hi Geoff and Erica thanks for the e-mail. The chance of the KM litigating against ratepayers is extremely remote. Any ratepayer has the right to declare a dispute and until such time as the dispute is resolved the KM is not able to apply credit control measures. The intension is to sit around a table in order to get our very serious issues addressed. This unfortunately is uncomfortable for certain officials who have been implicated in activities. As such they would try to discourage any real investigation into a host of the issues that have been tabled.

A process like this takes time to unfold and we as ratepayers will be able to decide on strategies as we go along. Being part of the National Taxpayers Union, the NTU and their lawyers will step into the breach should it be required. Currently 41 towns across South Africa have declared disputes with their Municipalities and as of date not one of the Municipalities has decided to litigate as they are well aware that the issues, like ours are very real and valid. Litigation would compel Municipalities to expose tender documents, personal ties with construction companies, nepotism etc. etc.

As a Ratepayers Association we are well aware that it would be far easier to ignore what is happening to our funds and let the rot continue but on principle we have decided to draw a line in the sand and force the Municipality to address these issues. The press is on our side as well as many of out neighboring towns. Ideally we would want to have a great relationship with our council but unfortunately it appears as if they are more inclined to look after their own personal interests rather that the interests of the communities they are supposed to be serving.

Geoff the SFBRA would never expect all of the residents to join in the withholding of rates but we do expect that many of us would and to date we have had many volunteers who are willing to assist us in the very challenging job of administration of funds, service delivery (only if necessary), emergency services etc.

Thanks so much for the interest shown.
Best Regards,
Joe Oosthuizen.

I would like to know if being a CSF resident precludes us from the SFB Residents Ass Municipal dispute.

Thanks for all your hard work
Verna and John Hanley

Thanks for the e-mail. Verna at this stage only St Francis Bay residents have declared a dispute but we foresee that other towns will decide to join in the dispute at a later date. We are moving into unchartered waters and I am sure that we will pick up valuable info during the next few months that we will be sharing with other towns. The admin and other service delivery issues we hope to sort out fairly quickly and unless the KM gets its house in order we will advise other towns to join us in withholding rates.

We will keep you all informed. Thanks again for your show of support.
Regards,
Joe Oosthuizen.

Hi Paddy,
Most interesting reading your minutes are. Here’s hoping that the proposed actions will result in positive outcomes.
I have a few issues and maybe you can direct me as to who I can forward the jist of this to:
1. I was horrified to find that I had to pay over R900 for my 2nd boat licence the other day (in my case this is a jet ski) I am not allowed to use the jet ski on the river so can only putt out of the canals into the ski canal and out to sea where I mostly fish. Where does the R930 come from and for what? This is gross exploitation as I see it and a serious rip off. Were I not so law abiding I would not have licensed the jet ski and simply have used it. I will not pay this ridiculous licence fee again.
2. The End canal in which I reside has not been dredged for 10 years as is my understanding. My jetty is high and dry at low tides, is unusable and requires continual maintenance ongoing as a result. A year or so back I paid Brett Firth to dredge the area around my jetty with limited success. How can we live on a marina and have this sort of thing?
3) I fill the potholes in the vicinity of my house, maintain my own verges, have manufactured my own Spray Ave and Moby Dick Wharf road signs, all of which have again been vandalised (one of the poles has been completely broken off this time. Who is doing this?) and so I can go on. What begs the answer is simply what does this municipality actually do to justify the rates that we pay. Massive rates by comparison as well.
Your assistance would be appreciated.
Kind regards
Alan Orchard
21 Spray Ave
Erf 1446

That is exactly the reason that we have called a dispute, because we are fed up with all this exploitation. You issue re licenses and dredging, I will forward to Bennie Morsink and ask him to get back to you. I know they have had people dredging the canal recently.

Gr8 work Joe and Paddy!
Kind Regards,
D.G. (Tich) Robb,
Chief Executive,
Stansfield Motors Limited,
P.O. Box 45,
Blantyre. Malawi.

Please remember that if you withhold your rates and you are planning to sell your property the municipality will not give you a clearance certificate. In essence this means that the attorneys will not be able to hand in all the documentation needed at the deeds office for a transfer.

So if you are planning to sell you should keep on paying.

Thanks for that. If you read the section on Questions and Answers in our email, we did cover this. As has been done elsewhere, anyone who plans on selling or has sold their property, simply notify the Residents Association and their portion of rates gets paid over to the Municipality who then issues the rates clearance.