Museum board replies to election criticism

Press, 28 April 1984, Page 9

Museum board replies to election criticism

The Canterbury Museum Trust Board has defended the way it handled its election in December last year, after criticism by the chairman of the Heathcote County Council, Mr 0. T. Alpers. Mr Alpers said last month that when the Canterbury Museum Trust Board Act, 1983, was passed in Parliament on December 16 last, provision was made for a new board to be elected within three months. But a new board was elected on December 19, under the terms of the old 1947 act, he said. In reply, the director of the museum, Mr M. M. Trotter, said that at the time of the local body elections in October, 1983, the

board had good reason to believe that the proposed new act might be held over to the 1984 Parliamentary session. “The board had no option therefore but to begin the procedures for constituting a new board under the 1947 act. If this had not been done, the board’s financial estimates and the rating procedures could not have been completed for the ensuing financial year,” said Mr Trotter. “Furthermore, the board had to comply with the statutory election and appointment procedures to have the new board constituted by January 8, 1984,” he said. “By the time the act was passed on December 16, 1983, the election procedure

had been completed except for counting the votes on December 19. All voting papers had been received well before the sixteenth. “To say that the election was held after the commencement of the new act is not correct. The board has been advised that it followed the only possible procedure in the circumstances,” he said. Mr Trotter’s letter, received by the Heathcote council on Thursday, was distributed to councillors before the monthly meeting on Thursday evening and formally received. The council, on the suggestion of Mr Alpers, decided to ask the Counties’ Association to refer the matter to its legal advisers for an opinion on the election's validity.