DEVONPORT BOROUGH LOAN.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 186, 7 August 1900, Page 3

DEVONPORT BOROUGH LOAN.

MEETING OF RATEPAYERS

FURTHER LOAN APPROVED OF.

A meeting of the ratepayers of Devonport was held last evening in the Foresters' Hall, North Shore, in order to consider the proposal of the Borough Council to borrow a further sum of £10,000 to complete the drainages works in the borough, purchase Mt. Cambria, and repair the roads.

Mr J. C. Macky, Mayor of Devonport, presided, and explained that the loan was required chiefly to complete the drainage scheme of the borough. The £17,500 originally borrowed had proved insufficient for various reasons. Of the ne"w loan they proposed to spend £ 1,350 on the purchase of Mt. Cambria, which, at a very moderate estimate, contained at. least £15,000 worth of the best road metal (£5,000 more than the whole amount of the loan). Then they meant to extend and complete the drainage scheme, and this with connections, would absorb a sum of £6,650. This left £2,000 for repair of roads. The borough would require to make a special rate of 4d in the £ in oi'der to secure the loan, if they wanted to get it at 4£ per cent. If they wanted the borough to be nice, and its surrounding's rood, they must be .prepared, to spend a little money on the place.

In answer to Mr. Walker, the Mayor said that the best data had been obtained in connection with the drainage sceheme at the outset. The original estimate of £17,500 was made by Mr. Metcalfe, and was coijfirnied by Mr. Vickerman, and both these gentlemen were at the top of the tree in the engineering profession.

Mr. E. W. Alison said that he had ascertained that over £700 had already been expended on roads from the first drainage loan. This was utterly wrong; the Council had no right to divert the funds of the borough in such a manner, and they were not actingfairly to the burgesses.

The Mayor stated that the Council had decided it was fair that the extra expenditure on roads necessitated by the drainage works should come out of the drainage loaji. The repairs referred to were necessary to put the roads in order after the drainage works had gone through. So far ns the £2,000 proposed to be borrowed was concerned, that was perfectly intact. None of the £700 would be a charge on the new loan.

Mr. Gerald Peacocke also criticised the action of the Council in spending so much money on roads out of the drainage loan. The money had been borrowed for a special purpose, and the Council had no right to spend it on other works.

Mr. Alison said he did not bring up this matter out of hostility to the loan, but he was anxious that the new loan should not be diverted to other purposes, and he was strongly of opinion that the Council had no right to spend drainage loan money on repairs to roads. The new loan would have to be carried, but it must be clearly understood that it must be used for the purposes specified. It must be earmarked for the works for which it was borrowed, the purposes authorised by the ratepayers.

After some further discussion it was resolved, on the motion of Mr. Oliver Mays, " That it is desirable that the further loan of £10,000, proposed by the Borough Council, and particularised by the Mayor, be raised."

Tt was then resolved, on the motion of Mr Peacocke, "That this meeting of ratepayers and burgesses of Devonport desire that no portion of the borough funds, either rates or loan money, shall be expended on ornamental or other work not immediately urgent until the drainage works and the repairs to roads, for which, the present loan is being raised, have been completed, and that this resolution be considered as an instruction from this meeting fo the Mayor and Councillors of Devonport."

A vote, of thanks to the Mayor for prosifh'nf close 1 the meeting. The noil on the qtiestion of the lonn is fixed for to-morrow (Wednesday) week.