COUNCILLOR WITHDRAWS

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30886, 20 October 1965, Page 3

COUNCILLOR WITHDRAWS

Petone Move To By-Pass Mayor

i.Veic Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, Oct. 19. A Petone borough councillor today said he wished to be dissociated from the full text of the notice of motion to be placed before a special meeting of the Petone Borough Council at which the new Mayor and council will be sworn in on Thursday night.

He is Mr J. R. P. May, one of the six men whose names were signed to the notice, which seeks the election of “stated committees” to separate the Progressive Group members from the Labour members, and the establishment of an office for the use of the Deputy-Mayor to “administer all the work of the borough.”

The motion proposes that Mr T. M. Dick be deputymayor.

“When I was approached by Mr Dick for my signature, 1 was led to believe I was signing a document that contained proposed committees and powers of chairmen to nominate councillors to represent the Petone borough on various other bodies,” said Mr May. “I had no idea there was a paragraph in the notice of motion giving the deputymayor power to set up an office in the borough from which all the work of the borough would be administered.

“1 was given a copy of the notice of motion, but 1 was busy at the time. It was not until Sunday that 1 had time to read the paper carefully. When I did read it, I immediately contacted Mr Dick and told him I wished to be dissociated from the paragraph referred to," Mr May said. Notice Invalid It is likely the notice of motion is out of order. The secretary of the Municipal Association of New Zealand (Mr C. L. Bishop) said his advice to the Mayor of Petone (Mr M. R. R. Love) would be to obtain legal advice on his position. Not Required A notice of motion was not required because the Municipal Corporations Act provided

that councils could set up committees at any time, said Mr Bishop. Section 58 provided that no councillor should act as a councillor until he had made and signed a declaration that he would carry out his duties in a proper manner. It would therefore be improper to act as a councillor by moving a notice of motion before the declaration had been made.

Section 57 said that any person acting as a councillor before subscribing the declaration was committing an offence under the act. Section 46 said that a council may appoint a deputymayor who, with the consent of the Mayor or if the Mayor was incapable of acting, could have all the authority of the Mayor, except authority to act as a Justice of the Peace.

“Outside Functions”

“The association doesn’t want anything to do with this sort of thing,” said the president (Mr A. M. Linton). The association would not lend its sympathy to any incident outside the normal functions of a council.

“The Mayor is elected hy the people and holds office by public mandate. We will always see that this situation is maintained and guarded,” he said.

Mr Linton said there had been many occasions when the mayor belonged to a minority party, but these had not led to undesirable methods.