Schemes known by Friday?

Press, 17 January 1989, Page 16

Schemes known by Friday?

By

KAY FORRESTER

Canterbury should know its local government future on Friday. The Local Government Commission hopes to release the rest of the draft final schemes, including that for Canterbury, at the end of the week. Nine of the 14 final schemes have now been released. The commission’s chairman, Mr Brian Elwood, said yesterday that four members of the commission would be in Canterbury for meetings with councils from March 6 to 15. One committee of . two members would meet South Canterbury authorities; the other Christchurch

and North Canterbury councils. Before April the commission will meet all existing territorial authorities to discuss the draft schemes. Although the schemes are drafts of the final reformation it is unlikely that significant changes will be made to them. “The discussions with councils are a means of auditing the schemes. The chances of major changes are remote. Fine tuning for practical reasons is a better description,” Mr Elwood said. To cope with the workload of meetings with more than 500 local authorities, three temporary commissioners have been appointed to

supplement the work of the six commissioners.

The new appointees are Mr Doug Pearson, of Christchurch, a former local government officer in Timaru who acted as a conciliator for the commission in the Christchurch City reforms, Mr lan McCutcheon, a former Wellington Town Clerk and the co-ordinator of the Information Office for Local Government, and Mr Barry Butcher, of Hamilton, a former District Commissioner of Works who has worked with the commission in the Hamilton area reforms.

Their appointments are for six months, from January 1.