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Archive for the ‘Boca Chica Council’ Category

Wednesday, September 22, 2004
This year for some strange reason or reasons still unknown to the meteorological boffins those tropical storms sometimes alias hurricanes just keep on happening.
Poor old Haiti has been hit hard, its decidedly poor infrastructure always contributing further to its misery. To the east and north of the Dominican Republic too the heavy rainfall caused considerable flooding chaos. We in Boca Chica have to be thankful yet again, for we managed to escape any dangerous affects from the passing of Jeanne which brewed itself briefly into a low category hurricane as it touched our island’s most easterly coast. As it passed to the north and downgraded to a tropical storm, we saw no rising of the sea level this time, but we did endure three days of cloud, a fair bit of rain and one shortish period in the middle of the night last Wednesday of very gusty winds. Again no damage here in Boca Chica, but due to the rise in river levels and currents to our east, in particular the rivers Higuamo and Soco emptying into the sea in the area near San Pedro, we have been inundated with driftwood being forced onto and over the Boca Chica coral reef. The local council has helped in a big way employing a very large John Deere payloader and trucks to cart away the mountains of flotsam and jetsam that continued to wash up on the beach. With the beach neatly cleared of debris and the peak storm season hopefully running out of steam after this year’s unusual extravaganza Playa Vista is gratefully, after a very minor interruption to service, back to its regular sunny ‘business as usual’ disposition!

Meanwhile seven years later:
We are still naturally weaving ourselves through the storm season but the end of September is in sight which gives hope for another safe and sound year. By way of example Ophelia should pass well to the north next week.

Sunday, July 11, 2004
With reference to garbage-free streets our thoughts strayed off to the famous spotlessly clean streets of Switzerland and Singapore when the local council’s magistrate stated that here in Boca Chica too it is strictly against the law to throw garbage into public thoroughfares. We were very pleased, indeed relieved, to hear this at a meeting held this week in the principal office of the local Boca Chica council.
With this pronouncement as the starting point we felt very hopeful that a garbage disposal problem in our vicinity that has been gnawing at us for all too long could be resolved fairly soon. The problem is a simple one: irresponsibility. Incomprehensibly it is not even the usual adage of “not in my back yard” that applies, for there are four businesses in our immediate vicinity who have been consistently throwing all kinds of garbage into our common street area precisely in their and our own back yard. We are pleased though to be able to report that general garbage collection improved markedly with the introduction of an almost unfailing daily pick up when the council distributed a set of garbage disposal rules as far back as early 2001. However this has merely served to make our very local problem even more pronounced.
After numerous approaches and complaints one of the local council officers took it upon himself to circulate a letter of invitation to the meeting… at least we presume it started out as a circular although we never saw any other copy than that received by our friend in another affected neighboring business, Restaurant Verde Luna. We pounced upon this long-awaited opportunity and breathed new life into the circular by copying it and handing it on. At the appointed hour on Tuesday morning there were four representatives of the affected area, notably all only because of our circular-regenerating effort, and predictably none of the alleged street trashers were present.
Fortunately for us the council officers and the magistrate took the matter, having photographic evidence placed in their hands, seriously and called for representatives from the four alleged street despoilers. Three of the four were found and the magistrate spelt the situation out very clearly: that what they were doing is against the law and that if anybody is seen doing the like again it should be reported directly to him for it is he who has the authority to send the police and apply sanctions. There was talk of fines being applied, also of more punctual garbage collection and even of a public sign being erected for information purposes, but more importantly the meeting broke up in positive mood with more than one of the former miscreants acknowledging how good it would be for even for their own business if the back yard were to be kept just as clean as the front yard.
We were left to ponder just two things: how would a Swiss or Singaporean local council have handled the three year ebb and flow of street garbage and what actually happened to the original circular of meeting invitation?

Meanwhile seven years later:
We may be critical, though usually with tongue in cheek, of organizational difficulties from time to time in these parts but it has to be said garbage collection has maintained its high level of efficiency ever since those awkward days.