After many years of hard work as a Realtor, Martha had finally saved enough money to purchase waterfront property. She had a lovely house built overlooking the beach and enjoyed the beautiful view over the water. The waterfront had many rocks and boulders. It also had a lot of driftwood that dredged ashore over the years.
After some time of enjoying her lovely house, Martha had some ideas on how to make the place even better than it was. She spoke to several neighbours on both sides of her house and they all agreed that it would be a wonderful idea to turn the rocky dredge of the waterfront into a beautiful co-operative beach.
They all agreed that the beach must be done right, not just well designed but in compliance with government regulations and environmental standards.
They did a lot of the hot, sweaty work themselves, spending months and months picking up rocks by hand. Other boulders had to be moved by big expensive machinery. The cost was huge and so was the bureaucracy. There were proper forms to fill out for the government.
Lawyers and clerks had to be hired to ensure everything was done right. They had to negotiate among themselves over whose driveway would be used to hold the machinery and where the rocks would be moved. Co-operation was the key.
It took a lot of years but when it was done they all had a beautiful sandy beach to share and enjoy together. Many, like Martha, invited friends and clients to come and share the beautiful beach with them.
It cost a lot of money to keep the beach clean and maintain its standards. So there were meetings to attend to set out rules for all to enjoy the beach equally. The beach was useful for everyone.
One day a new group of people came and set up a loud party on the beach. They had not worked for many years to create the beach, and neither did they contribute any work or money to maintain it. They just decided it was nice and started using it.
Martha and her friends spoke to this group of people and offered to let them use the beach with some restrictions, such as not to party late at night and not to light fires on the beach. The new group of people ignored them and built huge fires, they left all their garbage for Martha’s crew to pick up and they were abusive to each other. They had no rules of conduct and would shriek and fight late at night.
Martha and her friends called the police. But the new people talked to the police and told them it was not clear whether the law said that the water was for public use or not. They said they were technically only using the water, not exactly the beach. The police said they could do nothing until that was cleared up and so the new people continued to use the beach.
Again Martha and her friends tried to negotiate with the new people. They could all share the beach, she said, if they would just follow a few rules like everyone else. The new people became indignant and called the newspapers and stories soon appeared saying that Martha and her friends were selfish.
Martha and her friends then went to the government to clarify if they would enforce the rule of no fires or garbage throwing on the beach. The government said since it was kind of private property and not kind of private property. No one stepped forward to interpret the law.
The waterfront became so abused no one could really enjoy it anymore and all its value was subsequently destroyed, as well as its usefulness and beauty.
Martha returned to her work as a Realtor. She joined the MLS committee at her real estate board.
The committee was discussing a concern that some new people were not using the MLS the way that Realtors had intended when they first created it through much hard work many years ago.
Someone suggested that they should negotiate with the new people who were abusing the original spirit of MLS.
Martha rose from her seat. She looked around the table at all the committee members and she began to speak on the importance of clearly interpreting the MLS to all concerned. The committee said they would think about what she said and get back to her.
Heino Molls is publisher of REM. E-mail [email protected].
