CITY MANAGER

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 26, 1 February 1926, Page 5

CITY MANAGER

fO TEi IDIIOB. . Sir, —Having lived for four years in Wellington I think' that nothing I have noted surprises me more than the apathy that its citizens display towards the mismanagement of their affairs by successive councillors. Hardly a month has passed since I arrived here that some instance of this has not been exposed in the Press, some very unconvincing explanation has usually been forthcoming, and the matter has been allowed to drop.

The latest exposure was only two days ago, when the City Council betrayed their complete ignorance of the proceedings of the Hospital Board extending over a year or more back, and of which it was their duty to have been fully cognisant.

A further recent example may be found in their treatment of the Ha-taitai-Roseneath municipal motor-bus project.

During the early months of, last year the Mayor and council officially announced through the Press, and by letters from the Town Clerk to public bodies, confirmed by the local member of Parliament, Councillor A. L. Monteith, that the first municipal bus available would be put on the run between the tramway terminus, Hataitai, and the Roseneath Fire Station. Later in the year the Tramways Committee actually fixed and published the through fares which they proposed to charge, and every effort was made on. behalf of the council to convince tho residents of their intention to inaugurate the service immediately; it would be-interesting to know with ■whajt object in view. The result has been, after many months' delay, a tardily provided bus that only runs half the way, and a miserably curtailed service.

On inquiry why the promises of the Mayor and Council have not been carried'out, I have with great difficulty estracted from the Town Clerk the information that "The. Tramways Committee cannot see their way to recommend the council to run a service over Graf ton road until the latter has been made suitable for the operation of buses." And this after they had actually fixed and published the fares! He fails to inform me when the Tramways Committee first discovered that the Grafton road was unsuitable for bus traffic, or with what object the Mayor and council set to work to mislead the residents in Hataitai and Boseneath in this matter. It seems likely that a similar disillusionment awaits the residents in Roseneatb. who in July last were induced to forego their claim to a,lift, which had been authorised, byj the promise of a bus service from Oriental Bay. The Mayor, when interviewed on the subject on Thursday last, gave such unsatisfactory replies that there is evidently little chance of that pledge being carried out at present, or in the near future.

These examples of ineptitude, drawn from Roseneath alone, can easily be multiplied from each division of the city; and it is clearly time that some steps-should be taken to remedy the want of businesslike control of city affairs. The only remedy appears to lie in the appointment of a City Manager. In conversation everyone seems to be in favour of such an officer, though the Mayor and council naturally cannot see the necessity for it. But what is everybody's business is nobody's business, and in addition in a email place like Wellington, where all leading citizens know each other fairly iutimately, reform becomes impotent before friendship; consequently no effective step is taken by citizens to compel such au appointment, and in the meantime city affairs go from bad to worse. • „. • It is useless to expect the Civic League t6 take any effective action in the matter, and their milk-and-water recommendation on the subject to the Town Clerk will effect nothing. The Mayor and the bulk of the councillors are their nominees. They are responsible for them, and it is hardly to be expected that the League will take any really active ste^s to oppose them, or to expose their inefficiency. . . „ May I appeal to you to move m tue matter, to stir up the community, to rouse them to tho dangers of continuing the present system of control, and to urge them to insist on the appointment of a City Manager while the opportunity is still open?—l am, etc., ALEC P. MATHESON.