THE CATCHMENT BOARDS

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24270, 30 May 1944, Page 4

THE CATCHMENT BOARDS

DEPARTMENTAL MEMBERS EARLY ANNOUNCEMENT EXPECTED At the local body elections on Saturday the elective members of the first six Catchment Boards under the Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Act, 1941, were appointed. The personnel of the boards remains to be completed by the appointment of members nominated by the Government, and as indicated previously these will probably be representatives of the Public Works, Lands, State Forest, Scientific and Industrial Research, and Agriculture Departments. Although no official statement has yet been made, it is expected that the non-elective members of the various boards will be appointed without delay, and that the first meetings of the boards will be called by the Minister of Public Works, by notice published in the Gazette, within a month, since the act provides that the annual meeting shall be held within 30 days of the third Saturday in May. The first business of each board will be the election of a chairman and probably the appointment of a secretary. At subsequent meetings it is probable that consideration will be given to the field of operations to be undertaken. This, as the majority of elective members of the North Canterbury Catchment Board have indicated. will probably be confined to research and investigation. The board has power to appoint any officers it thinks necessary, and may “provide and maintain” public offices for holding meetings and for the use of its staff. The act provides that meetings of a board shall be open to the public but for sufficient cause, of which the board alone is judge, it may exclude strangers from any meeting. . However limited may he the activities of the Catchment Boards in the first years of their existence, they will renuire finance, and the preparation of estimates of receipts and expenditure and the striking of the necessary i%tes will have to be undertaken at a fairly early date. Although the boards have substantial rating powers, their initial work, at least, is unlikely to add anything but an insignificant sum to the levies on ratepayers in their very extensive catchment districts.