BOROUGH ELECTION.

Hastings Standard, Volume XI, Issue 5552, 25 July 1907, Page 2

BOROUGH ELECTION.

(TO THE EDITOR.) Sir,—There is at present a vacancy in our Borough Council, and perhaps never in the history of our town was it more important to see a good firm man elected to fill that position. It is really deplorable to see so much apathy displayed by the public in a matter that affects their interests to such a great extent. At the present time there are several important works about to be undertaken by the Council, involving large outlays of the ratepayers' money, certainly for the improvement of the town, and that are urgently required if we intend making our town what it .should be. At the same time, these matters require careful and prudent handling, and I, with many others, would liked to have seen a little more interest taken in them than our townsmen seem inclined to show. I have searched your columns in vain for any hint that the management of our public affairs was of the slightest interest to anyone in the place. This should not be, nor do I suppose would you find the same condition of things in any other part of the colony. Our borough management, or more properly speaking mismanagement, is a standing disgrace to the town ; our footpaths immediately round the centre of the town would disgrace a backblock township; even in our main street, opposite the Grand Hotel, the condition of the path there should, if is possible, bring a blush to the cheek of our Mayor every time he passes it. We have bye-laws more honoured in the breach than the observance, we have building regulations—save the mark—with no one to see or care that they are enforced, we have dirty, filthy buildings, condemned years ago by the Health Officer, planked down right alongside our brick area to breed disease and contaminate the whole neighbourhood—and no one protests. Sir, I should like to know how long our citizens are going to sit still and allow this to continue? Surely a town of the importance this is, should command a little more attention from its prominent men than it is doing at the present. Everything points to Hastings [becoming a very important town. It has immense advantages in the way of soil and climate not enjoyed by many other places in the colony, and, sir, it seems suicidal in the extreme to allow all these opportunities to be lost through the lack of a little interest in the management of our public affairs.— I am, &c, Townsman.