OBSID 5-year renewal
Obslife, Feb 2012
The OBSID has received four objections from individual residents against the five-year renewal of its mandate, due in July this year. According to council rules, the OBSID management has met with those of the objectors who wished to engage. Their objections, together with the minutes of the meetings, have been sent to the City’s SRA office for consideration
OBSID spending
Obslife, Mar 2011
The graph shows OBSID spending since the start of the OBSID’s financial year on 1 July 2010 to the end of January 2011. Obsid manager Brian Amery says spending is expected to remain focused on security and cleaning for the foreseeable future. The OBSID spent extra on security during the Obs Festival (outside the closed-off festival area). The extra spending was kept below R10 000. With the possible exception of a portable security camera, no major spending on projects is planned for this year.
A passion for good governance
Obslife, Feb 2010
Thierry Luescher, chair of the OBSID's finance and oversight committee is not, as one would expect, a finance man. He is an historian and political scientist currently working on his post-doctorate at the University of the Western Cape. But it is his passion for good governance and his constant insistence that the OBSID needed proper procedures and rules that got him onto the finance committee, he believes. He will have none of the: "oh, I know so-and-so around the corner, let's give her the contract," he says. He has seen how such attitudes to public money can ruin communities.
His committee spent the first three months of the OBSID's existence putting rules in place, including:
* Limits on the financial authority of the OBSID's officers.
* Procurement procedures and criteria to evaluate tenders as well as ad hoc proposals such as fixing street signs.
* A review of all contracts after the first six months.
* A set of monthly internal checks to be implemented in 2010 by the committee.
SECOND AGM FOR THE OBSID ON 11 SEPTEMBER 2010
Aug 2010
The Observatory Improvement District (OBSID) will host its second Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 11 September 2010 at 10:30, at the Observatory Community Centre. Here, the Board of Directors will offer itself for re-election and information will be shared about previous and future activities.
Attend the AGM to hear, first hand, about the achievements of the OBSID in their first full year and what is planned for the next phase. It is also an opportunity for members and ratepayers to receive copies of the financial statements.
Council bill shock
Obslife, Dec 2009
SEVERAL delays and billing failures have led to some Obs property owners receiving huge bills containing more than one month's rates and several months' worth of OBSID levy, causing some residents to believe mistakenly that the OBSID is responsible for a huge monthly rates increase.
OBSID COO Brian Amery said the accumulated bill is a once-off correction of council's failure to bill monthly for levies since July, and in some cases for October's normal rates. He advised residents to spread the payment of the bill if they find it hard to settle immediately. Officials assured him that the council only starts debtcollecting procedures once rates are more than R500 and 90 days overdue.