I provided a monthly report to the RA at its meeting today as required by our rules. Here's the summary.
1. Land Caretaker. I reminded the RA that our Sonja Strom, a former colleague who served with me on the RA last term, one of our most constructive members, has been appointed as a CDS land caretaker. She has been doing a great, diligent job, and was applauded by the RA for her work thus far.
2. Publicity and events. We are enjoying a small influx of new citizens thanks mostly to Oktoberfest, events and our publicity work. Rose Springvale and Sudane Erato and I are working to orient our new citizens as they arrive. So our theory that events create PR and generate new citizens is working rather well, so far. We extended thanks again to many, lead by our co-PIO Rose, for their good work on that front. Please help us welcome our new neighbors.
3. Land sales and vacancies. I reported that land sales and vacancies generally are not going as well as I would like; although we are not having catastrophic problems, and not even at a low point statistically for CDS. I have posted some additional comments about that here in the forums, and will write more. I expect in 2 weeks to bring to the RA several proposed changes to the laws about land sales and rent payment laws. Between now and then, I will talk to the factions and post some public suggestions for review.
We noted, in the RA discussion, that some themes (like Alpine Meadows and the fachwerken) seem to sell better than others .. and that some of the current vacancies may give us room to experiment with the ongoing ccmmerce-development project that RA has asked us to implement.
4. Expansion. As I've posted earlier, I reported to the RA that, as a change from prior plans. I do not expect to propose any new full traditional sims for the next few months, as I believe the economic market for unrented land is uncertain. However, we noted that there are three other avenues for us to
explore.
(a) Arria's Monastery Sim proposal. We discussed that at the RA meeting at some length. See more here: http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php? ... 241#p12241
(b) Potentially feasible acquisition of another void or two for scenic and perhaps NGO uses. I believe that still would be feasible economically, but wanted to confirm the Monastery Sim orientation and economics first -- on which we're almost done -- and confer with the Guild -- which has not met much lately -- so I hope that to be a November conversation.
(c) Potential adjoinment with the Al Andalus estates, a region which has a number of citizens jointly with CDS, along the lines they have discussed on a nonbinding basis in their own government planning discussions.
As I explained to the RA, we have NOT had merger or combination discussions with AA so far. It's my view that those sorts of things should be approached with patience and good listening skills, not as an unsolicited, excited colonizing conquistador. Based on AA's own just-completed government review commission, I suspect they will come to us, looking at us an option. We did well, in my view, not to rush in before that was completed. There are no guarantees that they will come to us. However, if they do, I think it's the best way to proceed.
Personally, I believe we probably would need to make our local governance methods more sensitive to local needs, to be attractive to AA, or indeed, to ANY future merger or acquisition of existing sim estates. Few, I think, would happily just turn over established assets, neighborhoods and cultural programs by giving unlimited and complete power to strangers. (Us.) So I also expect during November to propose some improvements to the stability and localization aspects of our current system. Still drafting and trying to figure out what might work. We'll see. I have high hopes. Expect debate :)
5. Government info center. During Oktoberfest, we expanded the main CDS information center in Neufreiustadt Marktplatz, by simply donating my own lot next door. Everyone seems to like it. I will propose that the RA at its next meeting approve a swap, where i personally give CDS that lot permanently, and trade it for the one across the Platz that's underused as a "store for citizens". The few citizen vendors we have could be moved into the expanded location, or elsewhere, fairly easily.
I noted that we we have no conflict-of-interest laws in CDS :( so as chancellor technically I could just DO this swap. Even though it's my land. But that's not how we should work. So I will ask the RA to approve the swap at its next meeting. (And I look forward to working with the RA on laws to prohibit government members from approving personal banefits to themselves, generally.)
6. In RA discussions, we also agreed to re-start "Government Question Hour" Q&A sessions for citizen information. Per our statutes, I will convene them, concentrating on weekend times on the alternate weekends when the RA does not meet, beginning with next weekend (1-2 November).
Thanks and regards JP