Dear Fellow Residents,

For those who have been away, welcome back to the big city with all its trials and tribulations which, as you might suspect, continue on from 2004. For those who have stayed in Johannesburg, the peace and tranquillity of the city will return to normal with robots not working and unwelcome traffic all over the place. As they say, it’s all part of living. I hope everyone had a good holiday one way or another and that 2005 will bring some improvements to all of us in the suburbs. 

Just to pick up with you on what’s been going on: 

1.         Most of you will know by now that we have had water supply interruptions frequently in the past weeks and the solution to this—as far as the City is concerned—is not readily available as you might expect. The water pressure is lower than it should be and the water supply situation is inconvenient for many people as it is turned off without any notification. The response from City Water up until now has been “problems with the reservoirs and burst pipes” but I think we all know that the real problem is that the infrastructure is not in place to handle residential requirements. It seems odd that the City fathers don’t realise that with all the additional housing developments that are going on and that are in the planning stage for 2005 just exacerbate the problem many fold. Your Association is currently in discussions with the authorities and is also having discussions with the press to see if we can make a higher profile of this ridiculous problem. To add to householders’ problems are the electricity outages which also continue – so we’ve now got two major problems on our hands!  We seek a solution on your behalf and will keep you in touch as to what progress we make. Sorry to start the New Year off with this kind of message – but that’s the way it is. 

2.         Although we have had crime incidents throughout our suburbs nevertheless the past two or three weeks have been reasonably quiet. I emphasise to residents that when they see people they feel don’t belong on your streets for any period of time, they should alert the police to come and have a look on your behalf. Don’t feel that this is an inconvenience to the Parkview Police – it is in fact their job – as well as your job to keep them on their toes for any genuine suspicions. 

3.         Our police vehicle, the “Craighall Striker” (identification PV18) has been working the suburbs although unfortunately at the moment it’s in the government garage for repairs due to an accident which occurred on Saturday night during that horrendous rain storm. The Superintendent at Parkview has promised to replace it with PV23 while it is being repaired so that our cover will continue uninterrupted as per our agreement with the police.   

Most of the Executive of the CRA are back from their holidays and we are ready to help you with any problems that you might encounter.   

Once again, Happy New Year and best regards,