VIGILANCE COMMITTEE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 127, 31 May 1928, Page 13

VIGILANCE COMMITTEE

"WIDENIN.G OF TARANAKI STREET At a meeting of the Vigilance Com-, mittec executive held yesterday, the Taranaki street widening operations were fully- considered ,and the following resolutions were carried unanimously:—(l) "That this meeting congratulates tho chairman, Colonel T. W. M'Donald, on his clear and able exposure of tho City Council's costly muddle, and on tho great service which he has thereby rendered to the citizens of Wellington." (2) "That owing to the failure of tho Mayor and the City Solicitor to give any satisfactory reply to Colonel M'Donald's charges, and recognising tlie importance of the 'subject-matter of those charges, the Vigilance Committee issues a challenge to the Mayor and City Solicitor to debate those charges at a public meeting of citizens to be hold at the Concert Chamber of the Town Hall, Colonel M'Donald to have one hour to address the meeting in furtherance of his charges and either the Mayor or the City Solicitor to have one hour to reply in defence of the council's action; or, if the Mayor prefers it he can have half an hour and the City Solicitor half an hour, Colonel M'Donald to have half an hour to reply. At the conclusion of the addresses a vote of the 'meeting to be taken. A chairman to be appointed by the meeting." _ ■ i The committee also decided that the chairman represent the Vigilance Committee before the Special Committee which is to hold a public inquiry into the City Council's application for the authority of the Board of Health to the raising of £100,000 for sanitary works-without a poll of the ratepayers I being taken. . It was the unanimous. opinion of members of the committee that whilst they were not opposed to a loan for sanitary works if the council can ftiake out a good case for such expenditure : by fully explaining the proposals prior to taking a poll, yet they are most emphatically opposed to the back-door procedure of obtaining the sanction of the Board of Health without consulting the ratepayers, simply to 'give effect to the poll campaign promises, and for fear of the result of a poll. To grant such an application before consulting tho ratepayers would be a. serious breach of a fundamental principle, in j local government.