The Press FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1964. Drainage And Transport Board Polls

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30561, 2 October 1964, Page 12

The Press FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1964. Drainage And Transport Board Polls

Christchurch citizens tomorrow have the duty of electing a new Drainage Board and a new Transport Board, a duty that should not be taken lightly in a rapidly-growing city. Good management of these utilities is essential if they are to meet the complicated needs of modern urban society, and the quality of management depends largely on the interest citizens take in their own businesses. Though the election campaign has been so perfunctory as hardly to merit the name, electors are offered some choice in most wards. The choice might have been wider if the Labour Party years ago had not insisted on bringing party politics into the affairs of these boards. The support generally given to non-Labour candidates suggests that on the whole those electors who respect their voting privileges have not been deterred by party labels from trying to choose the best members irrespective of political affiliations. On the few occasions when they have elected Labour boards the results have been unsatisfactory, as, for instance, in the delay to the transport modernisation programme. Two minor incidents in the last few weeks may also suggest to electors that they cannot look confidently to Labour, as a party, for sound and enterprising management. Although one of its own candidates for the Drainage Board (Mr E. Leach) had also made some ill-advised remarks about engineers, the Labour Party concentrated its criticism on Mr T. D. Flint, a Citizens’ Association candidate for Sumner. Why, then, did Labour fail to nominate an opponent for Mr Flint, who has been allowed to win his seat by default? Then at the last meeting of the Transport Board Mr Stillwell, who is again a Labour candidate, proposed the abolition of the shopping bus, one of the board’s most promising innovations.