COUNTY RATEPAYERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 98, 27 April 1932, Page 17

COUNTY RATEPAYERS.

NEXT MONTH'S ELECTIONS

DISQUALIFICATION REMOVED

Discussing the county council elections which are to be held next month the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Hon. A. Hamilton, in a, statement which was published in the "Auckland Star" on Saturday, said that ratepayers who had paid their rates in full to March 31, 1930, would be eligible to nominate candidates, to be nominated as candidates and to vote, even although they wero defaulters in regard to the payment of rates levied since that date. The proposed amendment to the Act would also relate to electric power board elections and all other elections affected by tho disqualification provisions.

The measure would not apply to the case of defaulters where rates owing by them at any time during the financial year ended March 31, 1930, had been remitted, explained the clerk of the Waitemata County Council, Mr. C. A. Cawkwcll, this morning. The clause was new to him. He thought that the proportion of ratepayers in his county more than two years in rating arrears would be nearly 10 per cent, while some 20 per cent would be affected by the new legislation. It was also made clear, he added, that the amendment was for a short period.

In tho Manukau County those who would still be penalised at the forthcoming elections would be about 5 per cent, said, the county clerk, Mr. E. Ashcroft, and those with less than two years arrears were probably under 20 per cent. Mr. Ashcroft thought that the step was generally agreed to be a right one. Steps which formerly had been taken to ensure the immediate payment of rates were rather harsh in view of the present economic conditions.

Hospital and electric power boards, which did not conduct their own elections, were affected only in so far as members from the counties became members of their boards.