No pay rises for Halswell councillors

Press, 24 October 1980, Page 18

No pay rises for Halswell councillors

Halswell District Community councillors are practising what they preach t'.out economics. The annual meeting of the council decided that councillors would continue to receive 85 for each day they attend meetings, with no travelling allowance. The legal maximum is now $l2 a day, for no more than 80 days each financial year. The annual allowance for the chairman was set at $2OO. the same as last year. The legal maximum allowed is $2200.

Moving that the existing rates remain the same. Cr C. W. Crawford told the meeting there was no point in preaching economy if they did not practise it themselves. The chairman of the council (Mr J. Y. Pethig) was re-elected for a threeyear term; He was also selected as. the council’s.representative on the Paparua County Council, and the representative on the reserves and finance committees. Holiday programme Cr A. G. Sunbeam told the meeting that he had been approached by residents .who objected to a school holiday programme for children in the Halswell Hall being run by a religious group. He said the residents objected because the names and addresses of the children were taken when they arrived at the hall. They were also given activities orientated toward religion.

Residents were critical that the council ran an activity that did not cater for the whole area, but for only a action of people, he said. Cr E. M. Brown said she had also heard complaints about the holiday programmes. Some people would not allow their children to attend, and others who had gone along did not get what they expected. Cr A. W. Black said the matter should be referred to the Paparua County Council's recreation officer, Mr P. Walls, who organised the programmes. Some guidelines needed to be laid down about the type of programmes that were run.

The committee clerk (Mr R. E. Hobbs) said it was difficult to find', volunteers to run the programmes, and the council had to accept those who volunteered rather’, than have ho programmes' at all.

The council’s reception officer (Mr P. Walls) .later said that theh oliday.programme had in the past been run by volunteer parent supervisors. The lack of parent volunteers had meant that other groups had taken over running the activities, and. “unfortunately, one or two of these had - religious overtones,” he said. Mr Walls said he would await the committee report and council recommendations before takn

tions before taking any action. There were no changes planned.at present he said.