ARA AGM coming up

THE AbaQulusi Residents Association (ARA) will hold its Annual General Meeting on Thursday, February 15, at 5:30pm, at the Risen Son Academy, on the corner of Utrecht and West streets.

The date was decided upon at the ARA committee meeting held on Monday this week.

Not much else was discussed at the meeting. Doug Grewar reiterated his and the ARA’s disappointment with the Mayor’s response to the ARA’s complaints since their initial meeting when the mayor was elected. Mr Grewar said that at the mayor’s request the ARA’s list of 185 complaints was reduced to just five priority complaints, and even then none of them had been fully resolved.

Mr Grewar said, “It’s a chicken and egg situation: we haven’t the community’s support to get the municipality’s attention, and the municipality won’t give us their attention without that support.” He said that there was a lack of political will to enforce the municipality’s bylaws.

Regarding the February AGM, Mr Grewar said on the Association’s Facebook page:

“A new committee will have to be elected. Fortunately our Secretary Adele Brits Richter and our treasurer Brigitte Meyer Alston have agreed to continue in 2015. These two ladies have done a magnificent job and the ARA is lucky to have them.

“I have only stood in as acting Chairman because Chairman Jan Combrinck was too busy with his new business of Castle Sands to do the job. I will not be standing for chairman in 2015.

“I think the position must go to somebody younger with fresh fighting spirit and bulldog perseverance. I am sick and tired of trying to talk to pampoens (amapumpwans) who are being given fantastic wages for doing [nothing].”