Archive for December, 2010

Minutes of the 71st Meeting of the CLC held on 10th December 2010

Tuesday, December 14th, 2010

Camposol Residents Association

Central Liason Committee

Minutes of the 71st Meeting of the CLC held on 10th December 2010

Present

Bob Owen           Chairman

Les Crook           Vice Chairman

Joyce Stewart    Treasurer

Sandy Allison     Secretary

Jackie Drewe

Barrie Eveleigh

Peter Pitt

José Navarro

Apologies

John Daws

The meeting started at 3.00 pm

Chairman’s opening remarks

The Chairman proposed that the minutes of the last meeting be accepted as a true record.

Proposed by Jackie. Seconded by Joyce. Accepted unanimously

Treasurer’s report

Joyce Stewart reported that as at 10.12.10 there is 19268.63 in the bank, and a further 107.86 Cash in Hand.

Entity By-laws update

Chair reported that the lawyers had had four meetings with the council regarding the by-laws.

The draft by-laws should be ready for translation very soon, and would be discussed by the committee before a further meeting with the lawyers or council.

Re-cycling Bins Update

Secretary and José stated that they were still awaiting replies from the Council. They would continue to chase them, and the matter was carried forward to the next meeting.

Road Repairs Update

Secretary asked for an update on the road B13/B20.

Chair suggested moving the barriers by the island and putting them further along the road, by the dangerous dip, as an interim safety measure. (To be undertaken by Brian Jermyn –Chairman of B Clean)

Barrie expressed concerns regarding the recent statement from the council engineers that they have compiled specifications and costings for the work that would be needed for Masa to bring the urbanizations roads up to standard. Barrie reminded the committee that he had previously had considerable experience in the construction industry and that his unease had come about as a result of there not being any obvious evidence of the extensive investigation on Camposol that in his view would be needed to adequately form these reports.

The Chair stated it is not the responsibility of the CRA to stipulate specifications on road building. We are a neighbours association with no legal right to question the council’s qualified engineers.
It will become the responsibility of the entity and the duty of the Administrator to carry out specification checks on our behalf prior to taking over responsibility for the roads from the council. The CRA do not have a mandate or authority to accept responsibility for any completion of works. That is the right of all residents of Camposol once an entity is formed.

At that time if it is deemed necessary to employ an engineer/surveyor to verify the standards it is a cost to the entity so everyone pays, if we undertook to do it our members would pick up the tab. Hardly fair

Arrangements for minute taking at future meetings with the Council

Vice Chair explained the difficulty of participating in Council meetings, and taking proper notes at the same time

Joyce said that she thought it was very important for all of the Committee to have verbatim reports of Council meetings

Barrie said that his digital recorder gives very good results, and can be transferred to disc for future reference José intimated that the Council would have no objection to a recording being made

It was proposed by Vice Chair, and seconded by Treasurer, that we should purchase a similar device. Accepted unanimously

Jackie is to investigate the purchase of an MP3 recording device

Request from ASHOC to be given access to CRA website

Christian Duchenne has asked permission for the rest of ASHOC to be given the facility to access and post on the CRA web site

Membership of the CRA is needed to have access to the Forum, although CD was granted discretionary access by a former chairman, with a view to fostering a better relationship between the two groups. However, the committee were not in full agreement that it should be granted to other ASHOC members.

CD has asked Frans Permentier to discuss the matter with the CRA Chairman, but as yet no contact has been made by FP.

Resolution of Camposol’s Various Problems

All of the Committee members discussed and gave their opinions on the problems and progress on Camposol.

Chair said, that there were so many rumours going around Camposol, residents are not sure what is fact or what is fiction

It was therefore proposed to produce a quarterly news letter, edited by Barrie, which would be printed or inserted as a flyer in the Camposol magazines. This would give FACTS and information directly to the people of Camposol

Parking on Sector B Commercial Centre

Peter Pitt expressed concern about the illegal parking on Sector B Commercial Centre and also the number of drivers ignoring the ‘No Entry’ signs in the car park.

He enquired if we could do anything about it now, but was informed by Chair, that this could be incorporated into the entity by-laws

Iberdrola Contact

José explained that he is having difficulty getting a contact for Iberdrola, so the matter will be carried forward to the next meeting.

Red Weevil

At the beginning of December José attended a meeting at the Town Hall about symptoms, preventative action and cures for the Red Weevil palm Disease.

José said that there was not enough information readily available to the public, so, there will be a précis of his report on the notice board in the CRA cabin, and when the Council provide an English translation, José will liaise with Joyce and Jackie and it will be posted on the website ASAP. It will also be included in the new quarterly news letter

CRA Website Forum Terms

Jackie expressed her dismay, that postings were being copied from the CRA Forum, to other websites without prior permission.

These were mainly private postings, and she felt that members’ privacy should be protected.

Barrie proposed that a new rule should be introduced to the terms of forum membership and this was seconded by Joyce. There was one abstention

The new rule reads as follows

Forum Etiquette

Members must not copy and redistribute any information from the CRA Forum without gaining prior permission from the author

Membership Update

The CRA currently has 2308 members

Sector A          309

Sector B          446

Sector C          454

Sector D        1077

Unspecified       22

Who can be a member of the CRA?

Jackie stated that there are three conflicting statements on the website concerning membership.

She is going to investigate further, and provide recommendations for the next meeting.

Website Advertising

Jackie explained that although our fees were very reasonable, due to some websites offering free advertising, the CRA website was not attracting any new advertisers.

Chair suggested that we offer a promotional deal, i.e. instead of 60€ for 6 months we would charge 15€ for 3 months

There being no other business the meeting closed at 5.30 pm

Date of next meeting   TBA

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Meeting held at the Town Hall Tuesday 1st December 2010

Thursday, December 2nd, 2010

Those present: -

Bob Owen, Chairman CRA

Les Crook, Vice Chairman CRA

Joyce Stewart, Treasurer CRA

Jackie Galvez, Mazarron Council

While waiting for Santiago who was delayed by other business, a discussion on other subjects was held with Cllr Galvez.

Street-lighting.

The Council have no responsibility to supply the street-lighting, it is Masa’s responsibility. Masa are not paying the bills therefore Iberdrola are switching the streetlights off, just as they would if it were a house where the owner doesn’t pay the bills. It could be that the point has now been reached where the lights will not be switched on again until the bills are being paid which is why the Council feel that the sooner even only a partial Entity is in operation the sooner the lighting will be restored.  While an administrator has to be paid to manage even a partial Entity, the cost per house would not be excessive when taking into account the numbers involved.

Q. Has a precedent been set whereby Iberdrola add a supplement to domestic bills to cover the cost of streetlights on an urbanisation? It would make a minimal difference to an individual bill and easily ensure everyone pays their share.

A. No such precedent has been heard of by the Council.

Q. Many feel that there is an excessive level of lighting (when it’s on). Is it possible to disconnect half or more of the existing streetlights?

A. Yes. An entity could decide to do this if a majority of the owners wanted it.

Q. It has been said that before the Council would accept the lighting infrastructure prior to passing the onus of paying the bills on to the residents, Iberdrola would carry out an inspection of the infrastructure and there is much which now needs repairing. Is there a charge for inspection and repairs, if so who is expected to pay?

A. To my best knowledge there is no charge for the inspection, and possibly not for repairs. Iberdrola receive their income from the lighting charges.

Water Leaks.

Cllr Galvez expressed her regret that the contact she had within Agualia who has been so helpful in arranging that leaks are speedily dealt with has now left the company. She is trying to find another equally helpful contact so that the system whereby the CLC reports to her, and she liaises with Agualia can be re-instated. We were able to tell her that 2 serious leaks reported to us yesterday, were passed direct to Masa’s head office by us and both had been fixed today.

Water supply.

The situation exists where not everyone pays for water. There are meters fitted to barely used holiday homes, and many occupied homes have no meters.

Q.  Has the Council the authority to ensure that every house is fitted with water and electricity meters?

A. No, but this is another thing a functioning Entity could bring about. The fact that so many are paying for but not using water possibly means that the income Masa receives from those who do pay is enough to cover all the leaks. Masa is also still not passing the rubbish collection charge on to the Council.

Q. We recently heard that on some urbanisations around Cartagena the entity fees are added to the water bills as a way of preventing non-payment of fees. Do you know if this is a fact, and if so would it be possible on Camposol?

A. It is true and could be worth looking in to. The biggest problem for any Entity is collecting the fees. If this could be done then the rubbish collection charge would be passed on to the Council, or it would be possible to employ a different contractor as Country Club are doing.

Q. Where exactly is the boundary of Camposol?

A.  The outer edge of the perimeter road. Immediately beyond it the land is owned by various farmers and is not the responsibility of residents of Camposol.

Santiago Martinez (SM) joins the meeting.

SM was asked for an update on the issues raised at our last meeting.

The Bridge.

The Council do not consider the Bridge repairs are complete. Main repair is done but some finishing off of pavement and other areas is required. Also the site area will need tidying up on completion.

SM has issued an order to MASA to re-instate the road across the rambla at the original crossing point. This will provide an alternative crossing point.

SM has also issued an order to MASA to cure the flooding problem at the bottom of “C” Sector adjacent to the Golf Course on the road to the bridge. This is as a result of an incident to one of our members when his car was flooded at this point.

The Rambla

Still in planning with all concerned and the Council architects are looking at possible alternatives that will be acceptable to Hidrographica.

The situation with the drainage from the hill areas is ongoing with SM and his team. The danger of flooding has been alleviated somewhat by the works already done by the Gardening Groups.

Roads in general.

SM has issued all the legal notices to Masa for the completion of the works necessary to complete Camposol. All these notices have specifications and costings for the works involved. MASA then have the choice of completing the works themselves or the Council will using the money from MASA’s bond and their other assets.

Empty and unsafe villas.

The compilation of the list of empty and unsafe villas was taken on by the CRA and this is very near to completion and then will be passed to SM for action.

MASA rubbish still on Camposol.

Ongoing and will be pursued following the urgent works. Council said they are concerned about dumping in general on Camposol and have now involved the Environmental Department for consideration.

Another meeting will be arranged in the New Year to continue monitoring the works.

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