If not a Special Rates Area, then what?

Following numerous questions from readers regarding the SRA, St Francis Today submitted some of the more pertinent questions to St Francis Property Owners committee to which they have responded in detail. READ SRA Q&A

Most concerning is their comment in the final paragraph of that Q&A post. Looking back to a meeting of St Francis Bay Residents Association held way back in October 2015 at St Francis Bay Golf Club, Nigel Aitken, and then chairman of the Residents association appealed to the younger St Francis community to take the baton and breathe some fresh ideas into the association. At that time Chris Gray, now one of the founder members of what is now the Saving St Francis committee member, was the first to rise to the challenge and along with Wayne Furphy, started the ball rolling by analysing each aspect of the failing infrastructure of St Francis, not only of the Bay area but rather St Francis as a whole.

These two gentleman were joined by equally accomplished and successful business leaders who have spent not only many hours of their time but also funded much of the work done to date on developing a workable plan to ‘Save St Francis’. None who have followed the development of ideas since the new committee can deny that they have accurately assessed, with the help of consultants, the declining fortunes of St Francis and come up with a workable solution to the failing infrastructure.

The Kouga municipality has made it quite clear they are unable to finance what needs to be done, even when a new budget is put into place in July this year. It is an incontestable reality that the poor will get the biggest slice of the cake whether one feels it is fair or not. That is the way it is all over our country and the previously advantage must ‘lump it or leave’.

So if the money isn’t generated by the local community, where is it going to come from?

As said in previous posts on St Francis Today, there has not been a single suggestion yet on an alternative. There certainly have been many criticisms on what the Saving St Francis committee has suggested as a way of arresting the decay but not one on a working alternative.

And so back to that final statement in the Q&A post.

That the committee will resign if the SRA is a rejected! This leaves us with a huge question. Who will step into these committed gentlemen’s shoes? Are there other experienced and successful business leaders who could be approached to take over? Methinks not, for those remaining experienced business folk would no doubt have voted YES to the proposal and as such would realise that any future efforts would be futile and a waste of their time and money.