Transport Bd used ‘weasel words’

Press, 9 November 1988, Page 9

Transport Bd used ‘weasel words’

By

SUZANNE KEEN

The Christchurch Transport Board has used “weasel words” in replying to a suggestion that it give a month’s free bus travel to Waimairi residents who have a bus stop outside their house, says a Waimairi District councillor, Mr Des King. The board has offered to sell the council monthly passes, at the normal price of $45 each, to give to the owners of properties next to bus stops. “Quite frankly, I think the reply is contemptuous,” Cr King told the council’s finance and policy committee last evening. “It has gone completely against the spirit of what Cr (Barbara) Stewart and

myself were getting at. I think they have distorted it — this is what the Americans call weasel words.” Cr King said the council had been trying to make use of empty buses. “You would think they would at least have offered us a 10 per cent discount off the tickets.” He suggested the council could agree to buy the tickets and then deduct the cost from the amount it paid the Transport Board through the urban transport levy. Cr Brian Shackel said tht if every local authority wished to debate the baord’s policy it would be better to disband it and appoint their own representatives. “We are not the Transport Board. They know

the political implications of it.” Councillors decided to do the “logical thing” and receive the information from the board. Water supply Plans are under way for a $465,000 full urban water supply for Kainga. In spite of the additional costs, Kainga residents have agreed to an urban supply scheme rather than individual private wells or a rural water supply scheme. It is necessary to improve the internal plumbing in individual dwellings for the new scheme. The finance and policy committee recommended that special order procedures be begun for raising a $500,000 loan for the supply scheme.