CITY COUNCIL AND THE PRESS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 14, 11 October 1917, Page 6

CITY COUNCIL AND THE PRESS

MAYOR DEFINES HIS POSITION. The old trouble' about the local Truss publishing municipal news of interest to and affecting ratepayers that is not officially given out cropped up at the last meeting of the City Council, when Councillor J. 0. Sborland raised the point about a. certain report dealing with a new system of charging for electric light and heat, on a one meter plan having been , published by one of the papers (The Dominion), when .the same was marked confidential. Some of the councillors at once assumed that the whole of the report had been published,. and they had just happened to miss it. As a matter of fact, the whole of a very \oliimiuous report was referred to generally in ii small paragraph—so small that many of the councillors were at a loss to know what Councillor Shorlaml was driving at. The Mayor (Mr. J. P. Luke), in replying to Councillor Shorland s strictures, stated that he was not in any way responsible for the information which had been published. At the same time lie made it very clear to city councillors that it was impossible to tell the ratepayers all they should know in the two hours the council sat every fortnight, and lie must reserve the right, as Mayor of the city, to give the Press Biich intonnation about municipal matters as he thought they should know.