Elat The Council and The New Room

Elat, the Council & the New Room
Phill Boas

It had not been one of Elat’s better weeks. Elat and his wife wanted to add a small room on to the back of their house so that Elat’s wife would have a room in which to sow. Elat had spoken to a local builder; they had put in their plans to the council and were awaiting their permit. Nothing happened for 5 weeks. Next thing all their neighbours got a letter asking what objections they had to the Council letting Elat build his new room. Elat was outraged. Elat only found this out because his neighbour on one side, the neighbour who had the big tree whose branches kept falling into Elat’s yard, and causing damage to his vegetable patch, came in waving the letter. He was asking whether the room would be close enough to his place to be struck by falling branches. If this was so, he would be objecting to Elat building it because he did not need any more harassment from Elat. When Elat phoned the council to point out that the room would be virtually invisible from anywhere outside his property he was told this was irrelevant to the procedure which needed to be followed. Elat wanted to know why the procedure should apply in this case and was told he simply did not understand local government.
That night Elat had a restless night, but got a huge shot of energy and found himself feeling very creative. When the council worker responsible for sending out neighbour letters typed the routine letter, she found herself typing a request for support for his project. Her letter included a briefer statement that they would be willing to hear from anyone who felt they should not grant the approval together with reasons. Elat received one of these letters also; with a hand note saying that the council hoped they would be able to expedite his application. Elat visited all his friends in the area who agreed to send letters of support, 120 did so, citing many instances where Elat had been helpful to themselves, the local community and the council. The next-door neighbour it turned out was hoping to build a gardening shed over the coming year. Immediately he received his letter he sought out Elat to reassure him he would not be making any objections. He assured Elat, if any pruning of his tree were needed he would be willing to do it. An officious busybody who lived behind Elat and filled his time with legal harassment at every opportunity, objected but forgot to mail his letter. Three weeks after Elat had sought the permit, his builder received permission to proceed. Elat was delighted. To show his willingness to be active in community affairs Elat agreed to stand for the local council. Elat was sponsored as a local counsellor and won on a landslide. Elat next won a hotly contested vote requiring all local council procedures to be reviewed in terms of their citizen-friendliness. Elat’s review panel supported a new CEO who guaranteed to get permit applications handled within a maximum of 14 days and to refocus all council procedures to be citizen-friendly, i.e. consumer-oriented. Elat arranged for the new CEO to have all staff receive some serious customer service delivery training. He also made certain that the new CEO knew all the 220 council staff by name and could tell him about them. When Elat woke up that morning he was feeling very satisfied and looking forward to his wife brewing his cup of tea.

End
602 words
Elat # 7

Elat’s Mayor – Council Business

Elat’s Mayor – Ministry Business

It turned out that the Mayor from Elat’s town had decided to take his wife on a holiday overseas, however, when he went to the travel agent he was told that she would have to send out letters to his constituents asking if any of them had any objections to the agent selling him tickets for the holiday. The mayor was outraged but the travel agent explained, a new procedure was in place to ensure there were no local repercussions from a constituency due to the Mayor’s absence. Complaints she explained, would be sent to the Local Government Ministry for adjudication, this procedure took approximately six weeks. In the meantime, the Mayor was at liberty to make a tentative booking, in case there were no serious objections, which the Ministry upheld.
The mayor’s wife was distressed, the Mayor was outraged and so he phoned the Ministry for Local Affairs and was told, ever so politely, there were rules and regulations and that they applied, especially to people in his position and that being a Local Government officer, surely he of all people could understand that.
The Mayor tried to purchase the tickets directly from the airline, but was told most apologetically that in order to ensure that no-one was disadvantaged, the airline could only sell him his tickets through a local travel agent to ensure that everyone who had an interest in the Mayors well-being, had a chance to express their concerns before he took any action that might have adverse consequences for them. No matter who he contacted, the Mayor found himself hedged in by rules and regulations that took account, seemingly, of everyone’s interests but his.
It so happened that Elat had submitted a request for a permit to extend his house, adding a room for his growing family and had been told that this would be impossible because his house would then be 1% over the limit permitted for dwellings on land of his size. Elat could get no satisfaction regarding his permit when he heard about the Mayor’s upcoming holiday. Elat contacted several of his friends who wrote letters of objection against the Mayor’s overseas trip.
The Mayor got several of his friends to write in saying they all thought it was a good thing for the Mayor to go overseas. When the letters arrived at the Ministry the letters of support were held in a basket called ‘pending’ as no-one had ever received letters of support for an idea before, mainly because the Ministry had never asked for them. The Ministry only ever asked for complaints, as that was what was required. Everyone knew that was what everyone needed to be concerned about.
The Ministry took several weeks to check the situation because the next meeting to which applications could be presented was another month away. The Mayor did not hear anything, so after six weeks he phoned the Ministry to be told that his application would be going to a meeting in two weeks, he would be notified in due course. Finally he was told that although the objections had been dismissed the letters of support were a problem and that Elat had some letters like them for his Housing permit request and all this meant he was required back for the next Ministry meeting in five weeks time. It was going to be a very short trip, the Mayor decided there would be some changes regarding applications when he returned. Elat woke up happy that day and his wife could be heard brewing his tea in the kitchen.