Yesterday, the mayor, Moshe Abutbol, held a press conference about the plans and his goals for RBS C/G/3/Gimmel. There is no embedding link, so all I can do is point you to it on the haredim.co.il website. The press conference is in Hebrew.
points:
- Abutbol says that there is great demand among the Haredi sector for apartments, and as soon as it goes to market, the section allotted to them will be snapped up. The whole area is being divided up, but will not be held indefinitely. The other sectors will have to market their allotted sections quickly, or else they will be given to the sector that can sell it quickly.
- Much of the press conference is Abutbol dealing with his goals for construction and pushing the agenda of the haredi sector. Abutbol was voted in primarily with the votes of the secular, as they were the first to push him forward and the haredi party only signed on later. The secular should not complain when they feel they are getting the short end of the stick as he works more to push the haredi agenda than the general agenda (for example, I saw a complaint about Abutbol in the local press that Abutbol is more concerned about building and who he will bring to bet Shemesh, rather than being concerned with improving the quality of life of those already living in bet Shemesh). They should have known what they were getting into by pushing a haredi candidate for mayor, and I have a hard time believing they really believed he was one of them.
- The construction should be good for Bet Shemesh, and no matter who ends up buying there, at least every sector is being given a chance.
Abutbol is constantly making remarks regarding the presumed inability of the other sectors to market their area.
ReplyDeleteThis may be true, but saying that from the get-go affects the outcome. It sounds like he wants to scare off potential non_Hareidi buyers from Gimmel by saying that the neighborhood will probably end up Charedi.
bf the election I was arguing with the owners of Super Hatzlacha over this very issue. I said that he is chareidi and will push a chareidi agenda and for some reason they just didn't believe me. They felt that he was 'one of them' and would try to stop the chareidi onslaught (which they blamed Vaknin for).
ReplyDeleteGo Figure!
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ReplyDeleteI was once speaking with someone from RBS-A involved in real estate development, who proudly related how he arranged to have many chareidim show up at the various meetings and registrations for plots, in order to suggest that all the buyers would be chareidim, and thus discourage other segments from even considering these areas.
ReplyDeleteWhether his subsequent reversal of fortune and his personal loss of hundreds of thousands of shekels was a divine punishment or something else is left for the reader to decide...
Whether his subsequent reversal of fortune and his personal loss of hundreds of thousands of shekels was a divine punishment or something else is left for the reader to decide...
ReplyDeleteJuly 27, 2009 9:42 AM
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That would simply depend on whether the agent gave his mei'ser money to Kupas Ha'Ir or not. Now we know.
First!
He doesnt need to "scare off" potential buyers from "other" sectors.
ReplyDeleteSectors dont buy apartments. People do. With the Chareidim proclaiming that this will be a chareidi town, why would anyone secular want to invest thousands of dollars (and if youre a kablan, millions) in the hope that chilonim will want to live in their area?
We know that the chareidim will be looking to purchase as much as possible. Both short term and long term. It is no secret that the chareidi community at large is looking to "chaap" RBSG. Much more than the chilonim sector, and the MO/DL sector. This fast alone will assure RBSG to be chareidi, more than chiloni (duh) and even DL MO
I hate the attitude here that elected officials should only server their very narrow community. It undermines the basic concept of democracy and is the reason we have such dysfunctional governments.
ReplyDeleteIn democracies that work, politicians set their policies to appeal to a wide range audience. The bigger the audience the more votes and power. The result is stable government and the world doesn't turn upside when a new government comes to power. The quality of society can be judged by tyranny of the minority.
Here politicians strengthen themselves within their own little communities without care for anybody else and they still get enough power to make a difference.
There should be no reason why a Charedi Mayor is incapable of focussing on the needs of secular memembers of the community and vice versa.
Hello people. The more charedim in Bet Shemesh the more likely the mayor and his party stay in power. More charedim = more charedi votes.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to getting votes and staying in power you will be hard pressed to find a fair politician.
If Abutbul wants to be re-elected then he can't allow the charedim to have a too big majority becuse then the ashkenazi charedim will run their own candidate (Greenburg?) and he will be kicked out.
ReplyDelete1. I would hope that not everything a mayor or PM or other does is in the goal of getting re-elected. They have to work, and do what is right, in their belief, without that being a concern. Closer to election time maybe, but it is paralysis if everything he does is weighed down by concerns of "will I be re-elected or not if I do this or that".
ReplyDelete2. Abutbol himself has said a number of times that he is not concerned with that.
3. Maybe he will bring a lot of sfardim as well to balance out the ahskenazim
What a shame that we end up reading about the Monday morning quarterbacking of that "Monday Night Abutbol" who we didn't even vote for! Haven't heard from Humble Howard or Dandy Don yet!
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what your comment means, Moshe
ReplyDelete