WAIMAKARIRI RIVER TRUST.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18397, 2 June 1925, Page 14

WAIMAKARIRI RIVER TRUST.

JO THE IDITOB OT "THE PXSSS." Sir, —I understand that the above Board meets again next- week, and there are a few things which I think would interest tho public and give them moro confidence in tho Board than they have at present. Under tho old South AV.timakariri 'Board regime,, a large number of holding banks find jetties wero constructed at little expense to the ratepayers, but since the Trust ha.s been formed wo are paying .some poventy pounds a day for what, appears to be l'ittlo moro than tho South Board did. Is tho Trust accumulating a surplus fund? If so, the rate should be reduced. The Trust itself consists of elected members, and the chairman is a Public Works Department engineer, and 1 understand a Terv skilled man at that. Tho chairman, however, only comes to Christchurch for two days in the month, on one of which tho Board meets, leaving him only one day to look after the actual engineering work. "When that one day is up the whole of tho engineering work is enrired out by two permanent employees of the Trust—th-* secretary and the Clerk of "Works. Botn theso gentlemenaarte t I have no doubt, skilled in their various vocations, to •wit, accountancy and construction work, but neither will, I think, claim to te a qualified engineer. Yet to these two official? (neither of them engineers) is left the safeguarding of tho city, and tho expenditure of tho ratepayer.-!' money on 350 days in tho year. It would, I am sure, givo the residents of this city a better feeling of Ferurity if tho Trust employed a qualified engineer, resident in ihis city, to carry out plans made by the chairman, and to act in cases of flood emergency. Jt did not give the public great confidence to road in your columns during the last floods th.it tho secretary had inspected tho rivor and reported that all was well. Does the Trust employ a bricklayer to keep its hooks? Then, again, with regard to the heaps of • sand in th© vicinity of White's Bridge which are evidently meant for holding walls, "Who passed them as satisfactory? It is surely possible, with the Canterbury College Engineering School right in the city, to pick up a young engineer who will always lie on the job in. cases of emergency "and give the public some assurance that the engineering works are being carried out correctly under the direction of a trained engineer instoad of an accountancy expert.—Yours, etc., TAXPAYER,