Woodfield Civic Assn.

i cannt beleive the number of streets that have below 50% participation in dues payment.why doesnt RGCA just plow the streets with above 50 % paid,keep the main road open ,plow/sand all corners/stop signs and leave the non paying streets to dig themselves out or plow only in front of homes that participate? something to think about for next winter

Plowing and paying

If we didn't plow adequately than the people who actually do pay would have no incentive to continue to pay. At that point we would have almost no participation in the civic association. We are hoping to have better tracking setup of payments this year so we can ''Thank'' the people who did pay--which would make it easy to identify the people who are not. Hopefully a little public knowledge of who is and isn't paying will prompt people to pay. We feel the amount we ask is reasonable and would provide adequate funds to plow every time there was bad weather. As it stands now we bear the burden of deciding when to plow and then hear all the complaints when we don't plow because we are trying to save the funds we have for when the plows really do need to go out.

Its a really difficult job and the lack of participation makes it a constant balancing act.

whats my incentive

we have paid RGCA dues and snow plowing from the very beginning. there was a time when 80% of our street paid.now with less than 45% paying ,whats my incentive? i pay so people with little cars can get out of the neighborhood. most of the newbes have no sense of community and will not even wave hello,and i am going to pay so they can drive in the snow. i dont think so. we will not be paying this year. LET IT SNOW,we have 4 wheel drive.

RE:Whats my incentive

Just so you know I'm a ''newbe'' having lived in this community for under 3 years. I've paid my dues since I moved in and I also attend the civic association meetings every month. Please do not assume to know who is paying their dues and who isn't.

Having said that I agree with you that it doesn't seem fair when WE (you and I) pay and 45% of the neighborhood doesn't (approx. 55% of the total neighborhood paid last year). The way I look at it though is if the people paying stop as well we won't have ANY snow removal. Since this community has a large percentage of older residents I like to think that by paying my dues I'm helping out the residents who DO pay and don't have a 4 wheel drive vehicle.

I'm asking you to please continue to pay your dues if you always have. The civic assoc. is planning to publish a list of addresses that paid this year (so if you aren't ''thanked'' it would mean you didn't pay). Hopefully that will spur more people to pay their dues and support the whole community. The assoc. was hoping to do this last year but due to a completely new board there wasn't enough time to make sure every person who did pay would be ''thanked''. Since they didn't want to offend anyone who had paid but didn't get listed a generic list of the number of houses and streets that paid was published.

Please don't get discouraged and if you can suggest anything to encourage people to pay their dues please do so. Keep in mind that the civic assoc. doesn't have the authority to ''force'' people to pay.