One-Man Council Back To Run Bankstown

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30289, 15 November 1963, Page 15

One-Man Council Back To Run Bankstown

(By FRANK PUDDICOMBX, N.ZJP.A. Special Correspondent]

SYDNEY.

This week, Mr Henry William Dane, a small, stooped 63-year-oid widower, entered the municipal chambers in the large Sydney suburb of Bankstown and became its one-man council for the second time in nine years.

Mr Dane, who has been, and continues to be, a one-man council in the Gosford shire, about 50 miles north of Sydney, has also acted at various times as administrator of four other councils. This man who rules towns and suburbs is the chief inspector of the Department of Local Government in New South Wales, and could be called ita chief “trouble shooter.” The Minister for Local Government, Mr P. D. Hills, last week appointed Mr Dane administrator of Bankstown after he had sacked the council of 18 aidermen. The dismissal followed the serving of summonses on five of the aidermen and another man on charges of conspiracy. The summonses charge the six men with conspiracy to demand and receive payment in consideration of doing acts pertaining to their office. Dismissed the Lot The Local Government Act makes no provision for the dismissal of individual aidermen. The entire council has to go. An election to appoint a new council probably will be

held in the middle of next year. The Bankstown council has been sacked twice before—in 1934 and again in 1954. The dismissal in 1954 followed allegations of graft and maladministration. The present sacking arose from a complaint by a private developer that certain aidermen had asked for money to approve an application for an £8 million shopping development. Mr Dane will now commute between his home, at Penshurst, and Gosford and Bankstown The local ratepayers in Gosford, where he has been administrator since September, 1961, will not let him leave. At Bankstown. he will sit in new £500.000 chambers—an imposing circular meeting place—with only council officers in attendance. Mr Dane will fix the coun-

cil rates, determine works and health programmes, approve building permits, sign council cheques and assume all the complex responsibilities usually dealt with by aidermen. £Bm Project One of tite first big decisions Mr Dane will have to make is whether finally to approve the £8 million shopping block plan in the heart of Bankstown. The dismissed council had discussed the project on many occasions. Meanwhile, the Mayor of Bankstown, Mr D. B. Carruthers, has stated that the dismissal of the council cast a stigma on innocent aidermen. The Minister for Local Government would not, however, discuss the matter with Mr Carruthers, saying "the council no longer holds any office.”