The few people who pitched up for the Sector 3 meeting at Kraaifontein police station last week were upset with the poor attendance that saw the meeting cancelled.
Ward 111 councillor Brenda Hansen said the community needed to come together to fight Kraaifontein’s crime problem.
“This is unacceptable. We are failing the community,” she said.
Law enforcement and traffic services had also been invited specially to the meeting on Monday September 4.
Law enforcement’s Pieter Lourens said it was very difficult for them to attend sub-forum meetings, but they had made the effort to attend that one, only to find they had wasted their time.
They requested to be informed of the dates of the community police forum’s meetings instead.
“We really do want to assist, but there are really so many sub-forum meetings that it just makes sense to rather go to the CPF meeting,” he said.
Only one CPF member, one CPF sub-forum executive and three neighbourhood watch members attended the meeting.
There was no representative from police at the meeting.
Interim sub-forum deputy chairman Reuben Carolisen said he had received apologies from non-attendees too late and could not cancel the meeting in time.
“If I had known by 4pm that there wouldn’t be a quorum, then I would have let you know,” he said.
But Ms Hansen was not appeased and called the absent members “irresponsible”.
“In this sector, what is really coming from police? There are no projects happening from the police, so I would like to know what are their plans?
“In Scottsville, there are shootings like crazy. There are constant shootings the whole time. What is the plan of action from the police side? That is what I would like to get from these meetings.”
CPF chairman Mawethu Sila was not at the meeting.
Speaking to the Northern News later in the week Mr Sila said that “now and then” Sector 3 had no quorum at its meetings and the CPF was looking to resolve that.
“We are working with the sector commander so that we can assist them,” he said.
Mr Sila said that when a CPF sub-forum meeting was cancelled the executive were then called on to report back to the CPF meeting.
Kraaifontein police station commander Bridadier Gerda van Niekerk did not respond to our questions by the time this edition went to print.