City out-voted on rubbish

Press, 8 April 1978, Page 4

City out-voted on rubbish

The Mayor of Christchurch (Mr H. G. Hay) yesterday sought to have the city virtually in control of; the proposed Metropolitan Refuse Disposal Committee 1 but was outvoted by representatives of other contributing authorities.

Mr Hay argued that since, the city, on the basia of popu- 't lation, will be required to pay s 60.1 per cent of the costs of r the scheme, it should have s proportionate representation t on the committee which will < govern the S7M scheme. <

The matter arose when the present committee considered a draft deed of agreement whereby the city would have four representatives on the committee of 10 (or 40 per cent of the vote) with Waimairi County two members and Heathcote and Paparua counties and the boroughs of representative each Mr Hay argued: “We will not be greedv. We will settle for only 50 per cent, or six committee. We feel we have the right on the basis of population and our share of expressed b • Cr I. G Clark, of Waimain County, who asserted it wouid be better to have only one representative from each body on the committee, for a total of only six members. Neither Mr Hay nor Cr Clark won the contest, as the majority voted for the 10-man committee with four representatives for the city. The committee also took strong exception to remarks made in recent weeks about the siting of the proposed Redwood transfer station in the Styx Mill region by the member of Parliament foi i Papanui (Mr H. J Walker).

I Ci Clark said he was “horrified that a supposedly responsible member of Parliament would make statements such as he has.” He added that, in hrs opinion, Mr Walker’s comments “show a lack of responsibility and appear to be purely political in nature.”

The committee’s chairman ,and chairman of the Heathcote County Council (Cr J. M. McKenzie) agreed, an< criticised a letter written by IMr Walker to the Commissioner for the Environment objecting to the Redwood

i “The knowledge of the! matter that Mr Walker had; .at the time he wrote the let-! iter,” said Cr McKenzie, ■ I “could have been written on the back of a postage stamp I with a carpenter’s pencil.” It was agreed that Mr Walker and other local M.P.s be invited to have a conference with the committee to clarify matters. Most committee decisions were deferred until the next meeting. It is hoped that by then the Commission for the Environment will have audited the committee's environmental impact report.