Comments and Posts on SRA
There appears to be some misunderstanding as to how comments are added to articles on St Francis Today (SFT) with some readers suggesting we may be ignoring their comments by not publishing them or rather hiding them by not publishing them in new posts the following day.
All comments made by readers are automatically attributed to the article / post to which their comments are directed. This is common practice with most websites worldwide where comments are encouraged. These comments are never hidden and are always available when referring back to a particular article. To say the comments are not seen again simply is not true for statistics show that older posts are regularly accessed either directly or via Google searches. All comments are published!
In an effort to make both previous articles and comments more visible, St Francis Today has created a Special Rates page on St Francis Today Website where all articles on the SRA dating back to 22nd December 2016, along with all comments can be read. We trust this assists those wishing to refer back to previous articles, posts and comments.
With regard to St Francis Property Owners association responding directly to comments on St Francis Today it must be stated that this is possibly not the correct forum as they have their own website where they post information on the SRA. St Francis Today does from time to time assemble a series of queries from comments and requests feedback for SFPO. This is done once a week and we will no doubt have some feedback before the weekend.
All SRA Posts and Comments are available on either the St Francis Today home page or on
Good Morning
Your newsletter is excellent but what I would like to see is a catagory whereby one can submit letters / queries / comments on any subject they choose. In otherwords a forum to air your veiws. The “submit a comment” is great but retricted to the topic being dicussed. Submissions can still be vetted by the editor to keep it polite and monitor content where necessary.
For example I would like comment on why Cape St Francis is having these constant random power outages whilst the rest of St Francis is fine. These normally take up to 4 to 5 hrs to resolve. What is the problem? I would consider information like this as “good to know” for the residents of CSF. Thank you and regards Martin
Hi Martin
Thanks for the suggestion. Way back when we started we did have a section “Letters to the Editor” but somehow it fell away but no problem in reviving it. Any info or news can be sent to news@stfrancistoday.com and we will be more than happy to publish it.
The “Letters to the Editor” page will be up and running by tomorrow so please send in whatever you have.
Sadler After receiving the latest news from the above it would seem that their campaign, as well meaning as they might believe it is, is not addressing the infrastructure they so readily use to promote their cause.
!, Google says, a SRA is for a SPECIFIC project within a local authority. As the committees main expenditures are generally Canal area based, should they not do exactly that (according to today’s feed back 32% river dredging, 28% sewage which I understand is in the canal area to start with ) not leaving much for the greater st Francis area
2 Infrastructure is not the protection of a small number of properties under threat which developers must have, or at least should have, been aware of when they built on a flood pain. A similar chance you take when you build with a thatched roof
3. The 82% yes votes that they claim to have are votes that were canvased and collected.(723 is far from 82% of 3000 properties and is way under 50%) Seen that the SRA have access to the votes it would be interesting to see a breakdown of the people who make up the 723 votes and what properties they own.
4. There is still no fixed amount or time period for this levy. Accordingly they indicate they would change the amount as the need arises. They also have no actual costs of the proposed costs and I understand that they are way under realistic costs.
5. Even with the predictions of possible monies collected taking, as they do, the 900 undeveloped properties they will still not have enough money to complete the projects they have proposed.
6 Yes the infrastructure has collapsed but that has to be fixed first. There has been an improvement since the DA has taken control, even with their very limited budget. One would believe with the new budget due July 2017 they would be able to do so lot faster than SRA. The reason why the area has desegregated is well known by the SRa as well as the DA and these need to be addressed first. ( Management, Budget control, vehicles and many other issues which could be rectified within a short time frame. THE BASICS NEED TO BE ADDRESSED FIRST not the needs of wealthy minority who’s properties may be under threat.
All that is needed is for the basic municipal infrastructure to be restored to what it was in the past. The DA and SRA are well aware of these which could be addressed in a relatively short time. WE ALL KNOW THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN OVER NIGHT and the chances of the council getting the basics done first are far greater than the SRA as this still has to be legalized.
7. The past Season has again proved that St Francis is still a hugely popular destination. How many people who live and own property in St Francis would like to live with the impact of the peak season influx 12 months of the year. I would guess that the wealthy canal owners choose St Francis as a holiday destination based on the relaxed and open areas that has made it as attractive as it is.
8. It would seem that in spite of the numerous positive aspects of the proposal it does not benefit the greater majority and is why I will vote NO when it comes to a Legal vote without intimidation. or the dictatorial attitude of a self elected group.
I will be voting NO for the few of the many concerns I have after reading most of their proposals including the 40 page December document which seems to have been taken off their web page for some reason. Maybe it is because they have now excluded Cape St Francis who are against the SRA proposal.
In the SRA latest report it was stated that they are all pensioners but there are those who own or owned large corporate business with large assets and multiple properties in St Francis and around the country, however there are many who only own the property they live in and survive of a pension or small investments which are shrinking. There is also a growing number of young residents in the area that have families to support who will find it hard to incur the additional costs proposed. Further if rates are increased be it 50% or 100% or more, be assured that the property owners who let their properties will not absorb these costs and will pass it on to the renters which could even have a negative effect on the growth of St Francis
Finally the SRA committee stated that they have the right to educate home owners on what they are doing which I find arrogant as their proposals are made on many assumptions and estimates with out any firm amounts or time frames and appear to change from report to report. We and I am sure the SRA committee voted the DA in to turn our town around lets give the chance, they have done it in WP
Infrastructure does not include the canals, river and protection of Private property.
I am not sure what the Chronicle would like to do with this as it is mostly my personal feelings but I have spoken to a lot of people across the board about the matter and by far the majority are against it. I just fear that that SRA proposal is been forced on people with misleading assumptions, information and unqualified statistics.
Mickey Sadler,
0837636981
.
Well said Mickey !