BOROUGH COUNCIL.

Grey River Argus, Volume 57, Issue 10520, 23 August 1901, Page 2

BOROUGH COUNCIL.

.» A meeting of the Borough Council was lield last evening. Present, the Mayor (Mr A Mathesoo), Petrie, Thomas, Joyce, M'Lean, Steer, Ashton, Bignel), and Gieseking. The minutes of the previous meeting were reai and confirmed, also thoss of the meeting of August 15 and July 25 were confiimed. ' The. out war 1 correspondence was read and approved of. Mr Pohl applied to supply lime for the gas- works. Referred to the gas committee to report. - The Town Clerk read the report that; the expenses of the town hall, etc, would b& £1,200. (already published.) - The reporVw&s received. i Or M'Lean proposed that the recom- 1

mendation be not nccr-.Ld. He* analysed fclie proposes separately and said ihat the terms had been altogether changed, and to accept the condiuuns by which the original proposal was surrounded .wuaid be misleading the ratepayers. The original proposal wt.a LSOO only, nothing more, and now, if they accepted the conditions thtie would be only L 2,800 left for the - ereciiiiU of a town hall, an altogether inadequate autu of- money. Wheu the matter was put to the vote, nob half the ratepayers voted. He ventured to say that if the proposal was now put to the vote the Boundary street site would be accepted by a large majority, ( ippiause.) Ib woulU be a pure wa<te of ratepayers' money to throw uway L 1,200 for nothing. He deal;, at some lwigth with further objections (loud applause,) Cr Joyce seconded the moti<m, and condemned the repo t strongly;- "^ e followed Cr McLean's a.gmoents to « great extent. Had the ratepayer! known of the subsequent conditions as detailed in the report they would nofc have listened to it. It would be a crying shame to adopt the report and a misuse of the ratepayers* money (Loud applause.) < * ■ ' Or Petrie defended, the proposals. In discussing them he said that L4OO should be deducted from the LI 200 for making foundations for the hall. Good as Boundary . street site was it was not so good as the Mackay street site. It was at one en s o f and they wanted the site as nearly the centre of the town as possible. In that respect the-site was nofc the bast. The best would really be at the end of the town that showed most progress, whioh was at the Tainui streef end of the town. He referred to the Government valuer's estimate to show that the Mackay street site was very much more valuable than the Boundary stre t site, and better in every way. The Mayor, in order to remove some confusion as to whether Cr McLean's motion should be legarded as regular, moved th*t the report be accepted pro forma. Cr St^er then spoke in opposition to the repo»t, as h& considered the Boundary t-treeb si'e was the better of the two. There, were better sites in the town, but, unfortunately, they were not obtainable at present. • Cr A shton thought that the* Mackay street site should not be thought of for a moment when they had their own freehold ground. Cr Bignell denied the propriety of a remark made by Cr Joyce that the' committee must have been influenced by Ihe church trustees. There was not the slightest justification for the remark. Had he known of the full conditions before he would have probably acted differently. Still he considered that the ratepayers were getting good value for their money; and a 9 he had been in favor of the site all along he intended to support the report. It was, after, all was said and done, the* very best. Cr Thomas supported the acceptance of the report. The amendment that the report be not adopted was put and lost by 5 to 4 and the report was then adopted. The q estion of a fire inspector was adjourned to next meeting. The Town Surveyed report was read and received. Per the first time on record all the rates were collected without the intervention of the court. The tender for metalling Shakespeare street was agreed to, and the report approved of. The Mayor referred to the rise on the ground rent of the Maori estate this year, and as this would probably be done periodically as they improved the property, he asked that the council i grant him power to call a public meeting in order to consider their position as leaseholders. ' -■ . . Cr Petrie said that the real object should be to try to get the property municipalised. The Mayor was empowered to call a meeting of the ratepayers, and the * council was appointed k committee to draw up resoVions to submit to the leaseholders. This concluded the business.