My thoughts about payments for car stickers

So much have been said about the topic and even an e-mail has been circulated in our Yahoo! e-Group to invite our residents to read my initial post about car stickers. I did not think I deserve such honour! :)

1. There was no engagement with the residents of Puchong Hartamas about the issue of charging the residents for the stickers. We have an e-Group, this partichlar puchonghartamas website and a recently erected noticeboard in the playground and yet the residents were not told of any intention of this scheme prior to the sudden announcement by the secretary to apportion and to levy on the residents based on the number of cars.

2. The core issue is not the number of cars but the arbitrary decision made by the committee to charge for red stickers if a resident needs more than two. Comments have been made subsequent to my earlier post to show how some other residents who have more cars were far more magnanimous whereas I had probably made a big deal over a small matter. And of course, the message was for me to shut up and pay up!

2. Following my earlier objections, the secretary replied that he had meant that if a resident needed more stickers than the two red ones allowed per resident, he could buy additional red stickers, not yellow ones. But a comment by Brian said he has 5 cars in his household (Wow!) and he got two free red stickers and purchased 3 yellow stickers. Wait a minute, didn't I just say the secretary mentioned that residents could purchase additional red stickers? Someone please tell Brian. He probably didn't know what the secretary said. Or perhaps he really didn't mind the colour of the stickers.

Well, I can only say this. Just because you don't mind doesn't mean I won't mind. If you allow someone to slap you around (in a fit of magnanimity, maybe), it doesn't mean that I will have to imitate you blindly!

I am a resident and I have a right to be treated as one. I am proud to be a resident of Puchong Hartamas (not a regular visitor, mind you)!

3. Cars that ferry children to the kindergarten are a different matter all together. The kindergarten is a business in our residential area and these cars are mostly traffic from outside Puchong Hartamas. They increase the traffic within our compound and to an extent, even pose a possible security breach. That's why they should be made to pay.

Incidentally, what about the van that goes round our houses selling dim sum, pau and soya bean milk? And other likewise vehicles?

4. The secretary said that I should have directed my post to Ramesh, who is now the Chairman of the PHRA and who is in charge of the arrangements. My dear secretary, was there any mention in your announcement that Ramesh was the person in charge? Anyway, if you read my post, I was just voicing my thoughts...ranting, as some would say. I was not even directing my post at anyone and I must say that the angry sarcasm in some of the replies and comments took me by surprise indeed! I must have hit a sore spot somewhere. My apologies if I did.

And, if I may observe, to date the Chairman seems to have taken a most quiet stance. Hello, is he there? Indeed, some past office bearer who has supposedly resigned seems to have taken on a more active role in directing the residents to read my post. Thank you for your effort. Otherwise I would not have received so many calls of support to my cell phone from residents whom I did not even know previously.

5. Indeed there was even a chap who invoked a suspiciously profane call to my mother by quoting another blogger. Have we come to this depraved level that we need to do this?

6. My thoughts are that

(a) All the residents who pay their monthly security dues have a right to go to their homes unimpeded, save for the normal security checks. Unless the guards are checking all the residents, a resident who has paid his security charges up to the current month should not be stopped.

(b) If a red sticker is used to identify a resident's car, a resident who has paid his security dues up to date is entitled to receive the necessary red stickers for all the cars in his household. If a fee is charged for each sticker, every sticker has to be charged the same fee, from the first to the fifth or sixth or even more.

(c) Membership of the PHRA is not compulsory (but of course, residents who think that the committee is doing a good job are at liberty to join and to pay their subscription fees to support the association). The issue of security stickers is linked to residential status (if you are living within the confines of our walled community) and not whether or not the resident is a member of the PHRA. In other words, if you live here you have a right to be part of any security arrangement paid for with the fees you pay monthly for this community's security maintenance.

(d) The supplemental agreement empowers the PHRA to collect monthly fees from the households within our community, only after the developer has assigned the rights of collection to the PHRA. At this point in time, there has been no announcement as to whether the rights have been assigned. The secretary had shown a proposed copy of the document early in this website not there has been no update to this issue since. Perhaps the secretary can enlighten us further on this? Regardless whether the assignment has been done or not, I would encourage all the residents to pay their monthly dues so that the security services are not compromised. And if the agreement has been signed I would encourage to put this on the website so that the residents are updated.