CITY COUNCILLOR RAVID’S NEWSLETTER

NEWSLETTER FROM YOUR CITY COUNCILLOR,
MARCELLE RAVID (DA)
WARD 73, REGION E.
OCTOBER 2008

Lower Houghton, Upper Houghton (part), Killarney (part), Riviera, Norwood, Oaklands, Orchards (part), Parkwood, Saxonwold, Jhb Zoo, Zoo Lake

I would like to wish all residents of Ward 73 who recently celebrated Eid, the Jewish New Year and Diwali and for those who will soon be celebrating Christmas, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

IMPORTANT: VOTER REGISTRATION
NOVEMBER 8TH AND 9TH, 2008.
If you are new to the suburb or just turned 18: National and Provincial Elections will take place next year (not later than the end of May 2009) and the IEC are holding a Registration Weekend on 8th and 9th November, 2008 so that all newcomers to any of the Ward 73 suburbs can go to their nearest polling station with their bar-coded ID books and register to vote. The polling stations are: Norwood, Houghton and Saxonwold Primary Schools and the Killarney Country Club (TAC) at the squash club.
If you have voted before and you have not moved since then, you are still registered and you don’t have to register again. You can check by sms-ing your ID number to 32810 or logging on to www.elections.org.za.
Councillor Mike Moriarty says:
…The recent emergence of ANC dissidents has generated a good deal of excitement and a fair amount of optimism (about breaking the ANC’s two-thirds majority). It’s too easy to say to oneself, “My one vote won’t make a difference”. This is not true. Hundreds of thousands of people say that to themselves. So the government feels no pain and fixing the country’s problems then has to wait for the following election; i.e. another 5 years! You can fix this. You can decide to vote (you must be registered first). You must also challenge your neighbours/ friends / family / work colleagues to do likewise.

NEW OUTDOOR ADVERTISING BY-LAWS
Have these by-laws been effective since their implementation on 1st July, 2008? This will be discussed at a DA public meeting that will take place at the Sandton People’s Centre (above the Sandton Library) on the 4th floor at 6pm on 4th November, 2008. All welcome.

ILLEGAL BOARDS ON TRAFFIC SIGNS: You are within your rights to cut down any signs found on traffic light poles, stop signs, yield signs, road name signs etc. These are usually not posters but hand-painted signs that are tied to the poles. These signs are a traffic hazard and are deemed illegal by the road safety by-laws.

LATEST HOT ISSUES:
POT HOLES
Due to bad management and an unsteady supply of asphalt to the city, there is now a backlog of some 1000 reinstatements in roads and pavements to be repaired in the JRA local depot area from Bruma to Craighall. This lack of management is of one of the core problems across the city. The service of City Departments of late has been deteriorating and response times with them. We, in the DA, have been at pains to point this out to the Mayoral Committee and the Section 79 committees, run by the ruling party.  I am as frustrated as you with the service received from JRA!

JOBURG CALL-CENTRE SURVEY
Frustrated by the Joburg call-centre? We are conducting a survey of the Joburg Call Centre. If you log anything on 011 375 5555 during the next two weeks, please let me know how long it took to answer the call, how long it took when being transferred to the relevant department, if you were given a log number and what happened when you followed this up.

WARD COMMITTEE ELECTIONS – REGION (E)
20th November, 2008, 6pm at St. Luke’s Church, High Road, Orchards
The City of Johannesburg is in the process of electing new Ward Committee members to assist the Ward Councillors and Council in achieving its objectives of Local Government in terms of the Municipal Structures Act No. 117 of 1998 and Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Act No. 108 of 1996.
The Community is requested to nominate members.
A person elected as a Ward Committee Member: 1.May not stand for election for more than a second term. 2.Must be a registered voter in the particular ward (18yrs and above) 3.Must have a contractual relationship with the City of Johannesburg with respect to any account in the name of the nominee, should upon election make necessary arrangements to meet his/her obligation. 4. Should is of sound mind.

SUBURBAN NEWS:

NORWOOD
GRANT AVENUE
Despite the downward trend in Grant Avenue lately and the many empty shops, there is good reason still to be hopeful. The hotel is to be refurbished into a classy 4-star establishment and The Spar is going to be doing serious alterations and face-lift with a two-tier parking garage. Other owners on the strip should take note of this and emulate these far-sighted landlords.

SAXONWOLD/PARKWOOD
USE OF THE ZOO LAKE FOR PUBLIC FUNCTIONS
I am sure that residents have no qualms with the Zoo Lake, as a public park, being used for large events. But judging by the amount of complaints I receive about the number of events and road closures occurring in one month, I sense a problem.
Should you feel that this is so, please let me know. One way of dealing with this is to petition the city about spreading these events over a longer period of time.
The Zoo Lake Users Committee works tirelessly for the good of the park. Thanks to Lucy Taylor for her passionate commitment.

UP-COMING EVENTS AT ZOO LAKE
94.7 Cycle Challenge – 16th November 2008.This race covers 94.7kms and again flyers with passes will be sent to affected residents. If you do not receive permits please contact Tanya Harford 011 463 2743 direct. Note: the M1 Highway and Jan Smuts Avenue will be closed.
Carols by Candlelight – 26th November 2008 – Amongst the artists performing are the Marimba Band from Parktown Girls High etc.

ROAD RESURFACING
Restanwold, Aldswold, Methwold, Beechwold are due for resurfacing in November 2008. This has taken five years of submissions on the Ward 73’s  annual capital budget expenditure list (IDP- Integrated Development Plan) to finally, hopefully come to fruition. Teams of workers will start preparing these roads in the next few weeks.

HOUGHTON
GOLF CLUB DEVELOPMENT
Thanks to the perseverance of the sub-committee of the Lower Houghton Residents Association, the Houghton Golf Course Development is finally being closely studied by the top echelon of the Development Planning Department of council to ensure that no contraventions have taken place and that the building plans that have been passed comply with what is physically being built on the ground. This has been a long, hard slog – taking many weeks just to get hold of the correct officials!

OPEN SPACE TRIANGLE ON WEST & CENTRAL STREETS
I have received an application through the Johannesburg Property Company for the purchase of the triangle of open land where West Street splits from Central Avenue. Please send your STRONGLY WORDED objections to the purchase of Portion of Erf 1449, Houghton Estate to: Nomsa Ndlovu: nndolovu@jhbproperty.co.za

UPPER HOUGHTON
WATER WOES
The water problems experienced by the Upper Houghton residents have hopefully been solved. Since the burst experienced at the Yeoville reservoir, they had been dealing with very poor water pressure. Eventually, Johannesburg Water managed to sort out the problem.

I AM VERY PROUD THAT HELEN ZILLE WAS VOTED THE WORLD’S BEST MAYOR

DA leader and mayor of Cape Town Helen Zille has been awarded the 2008 World Mayor prize by City Mayors, an international urban affairs think tank. Zille came out tops out of a group of 820 mayors from around the world in the competition which has spanned 18 months. A shortlist of 50 was selected from the 820 public nominations, which was later reduced to 11, and then to five.

SOUTH AFRICAN POLICE SERVICES
The Community Policing Forums (CPF’s) of the three police stations in Ward 73 all work hard for the greater good. Norwood, Hillbrow and Rosebank have dedicated volunteers on these committees who meet monthly. Johannesburg Metro Police officers, who are responsible for by-law infringements, should attend the meetings. If residents know of any by-law infringements, they should report them to the CPF’s, whose committee will then forward them to JMPD.

BILLING WOES
My Colleague, Councillor Denis Hunt writes on the skewed electricity and water charges on sectional title accounts:
CITY POWER  PROFITEERING FROM THE APPLICATION OF THE NEW  ELECTRICITY TARIFFS TO FLATS AND TOWNHOUSES

Free basic electricity as well as the much lower life line and single phase tariffs is presently denied to residents of multiple unit residences across Johannesburg by the ruling ANC.  This decision of the Mayoral Committee, taken in August was reinforced at the September Council meeting when the Johannesburg Speaker refused to allow an urgency motion on the matter as requested by the Democratic Alliance.

The Member of the Mayoral Committee for Finance Parks Tau who was standing in for the Mayor, and the MMC for Infrastucture was unable to respond to Councilor’s questions in regard to this decision saying that the item would serve before the Council in due course, and the matter could be discussed then.

Cllr Hunt said after the meeting that it was scandalous that the Mayoral Committee of the ruling party did not recognise that this was pure profiteering on the part of City Power. Residents who lived in flats and townhouses are now charged up to 40% more than those who live in directly supplied dwellings who consumed the same amount of electricity.

*************
This is an irregular ward-based newsletter, with a DA bias. Should anyone want to be deleted from this data base, please send me an e-mail stating so.
With best wishes
Marcelle

Marcelle Ravid
Councillor, Ward 73
City of Johannesburg
Cell: 084 355 0826
Tel:   011 728 6338
Fax:  011 728 6164
E-mail: mravid@axxess.co.za
www.da.org.za

Joburg Connect for logging complaints:              011 375 5555
Emergencies    MPD                                              011 375 5911
SAPS                                                                     10111