NEWSLETTER – SEPTEMBER 2014

Killarney-Riviera Spring Festival:
The NKRA is facilitating a Spring Day Festival in the 4th Street Park on 28 September. The event will be based around:
• Jumping Castle for children;
• Food vendors and ice cream wagons;
• Flea-market;
• Musicians giving recitals.
Daventry Court will be officially unveiling their new heritage plaque on the same day.
At the event we will also announce the winner of the Pam Golding Killarney-Riviera Verge Competition, for the building with the best pavement in the area. This will be decided with input from the attendees, so please come on down to vote for your own building – the prize is a big lump of cash!
Voting will be done on the basis of a display of photographs, so you will need to contact us in advance to enter your pavement in the competition.
We invite all residents please to join us on the day, to enjoy a few warm hours of community spirit.

Park Revitalisation project:
The City Parks Department has promised us some playground equipment, to help make the park more user-friendly for families which include younger children. If they let us down we will fund-raise to buy our own playground equipment,
We would also like to install a netball post and hoop – please let us know if you are able to obtain one?
We are busy planting colourful but low-maintenance shrubs as well, to brighten the place up. These new plants are being purchased with specific donations from residents, so if you would like to fund a plant or four, please do let us know.
We welcome all your ideas to improve our park.

Recycling project:
Suddenly we are spoiled for choice with a range of recycling service providers. In addition to calling Klaas on 072 152 9462 or 073 477 2689, or using the paper-only “Ronnie-Bag” project at athompson@mpact.co.za, you can now also call Denise Pretorius on 061 452 9770 to arrange a full-spectrum recycling service for your building. They collect all recyclable materials, and they will provide you with dedicated wheelie-bins for your internal collection points.

Martindale Mews:
The owner of Martindale Mews in Riviera Road has recently begun to give his building a large-scale facelift. Gone is the tall hedge, along with the unloved garden behind it and all the garbage which the vagrants dumped there on a regular basis. Instead it is now clean and open, with a stylish new railing, and the entire floor will soon be paved. We thank the owner for this very welcome face-lift to the look of our suburb.

Improving 2nd Street:
The project to beautify the intersection of 2nd Street and 2nd Ave is now basically complete. Brenthurst Court has removed the concrete slab from their pavement, put up a clear-vu fence and planted a mix of roses, irises and ground-covers to convert that barren patch into a small oasis. This just shows what can be done if a few people make an effort, and imagine what those flowers will look like once it starts to rain!
Our deepest thanks go to Deon and to the trustees of Brenthurst Court for funding and implementing this wonderful transformation.

Street Repairs:
Happily, the municipality has lately been doing something in our suburb. Main Road in Riviera has been resurfaced and repainted. The subsidence problem in 4th Ave at the Riviera Road intersection has been dug up, and so hopefully some repairs have been performed on the underlying infrastructure. A leaking gas main in 2nd Ave was repaired outside Gleneagles. All of these are very welcome, and thank you to Councillor Ravid for pressing for these services.
Unfortunately too many stolen manhole covers have not yet been replaced, and the holes still await the unwary, but this is at least a start.
Please report all open manholes and other road damage to 0860 562 874, and please keep the reference number for follow-up. The more we report a problem, the faster it gets addressed.

NKRA Street Sweeper Project:
We are overjoyed to announce that our NKRA Street Sweeper project now has a permanent sponsor. We are very grateful to Christa Roller and Gisela Seidel of Vered Estates for this most valuable sponsorship, which helps significantly to manage the serious litter burden we endure.

Electricity billing issues:
The City Power department is now billing us for huge deposits, on top of the fact that their new meters seemingly reflect a much higher power usage than the old meters did.
If your building is having any problems with City Power, please let us know. We are compiling a register of complaints against City Power, to support a possible future class-action lawsuit.

Free loan of trolleys:
Killarney Mall is prepared to make available free trolleys to all buildings, to keep in your garages for residents to use in moving their purchases from their car to their flat. Please let us know if you would like to host a trolley, free of charge.

Fibre-optic Internet:
A company called VUMA is considering installing an open-access network of fibre-optic cables to all the buildings in Killarney-Riviera. They will provide the network to the front gate of the building for free, but if you decide to take the service, you would pay a once-off installation and connection fee of R2500 to have the wiring extended to your unit. Thereafter you will be charged a monthly fee depending on your package – starting at R399 per month for 4 Mbps.
The VUMA fibre-optic system is apparently 250 times faster than today’s basic broadband. Among other things, this makes it practical to watch movies and TV shows over the internet. They will only install the network if enough people express interest. If you are interested you can get more info at info@vumatel.com