BOROUGH AFFAIRS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LIII, Issue LIII, 15 April 1908, Page 4

BOROUGH AFFAIRS.

The reports and the discussion ab the BorO'Ugh. Couiicil meetiiig on Monday ♦.■Teaiing disclose a condition of things that cannot be toleauted ony. longer lhan it ia necessary to make fresh wrangemente. That we, are sure mu&t bet felt by the Council and.. the. 1 ratepayers and all. parties concerned. In many rfepejets the engineer ( is a, verygood offieea*, he has donei sotne capital work .fc^i^ei .borough,, but no mani can satisfactorily fill the dual posjWon he has 'been tacitly allowed to a^ume, , Whciu an crgineei* to a local body tella his employers in a report "I want it to be clearly understood that the trustees of thf John Browa's e»tate einpl? f yed and paid me and that-

I was responsible in no way to any onei but Brown's trustees," h& discloses I an impossible state of sfi'airs. Wlieither he did or did net receive insitructions fi-om the Council with reference to tiKe roading o»f the Br«wni estate has in ©ur view a,bso<lutely nothing to do witli the matter. Fir&t and foremost., Mr Maophen'sooi) is borough engineea\ The first resp(»nsibility resting or, him is to tli« borough and the l'atepay&i's who pay him his salary and who put thcar trusib in his eocpert knowledge fjr tlie protection cl tihear inteaest®. That he should be borough «:oiginetr, the paid guardian of borough interests; and that withr-ut a word of warning to the Council ho should engage himself in the servicasi of other people and claim freedom from responsibility for seeing that the requirements 6? tha borough wore complied with strictly and to the letter wi^uld have beem. past credence if we had not found the statement in his. own report. The whole situation should bw a.t once reviewed. There ,is ao> sfsricus objection to a professioiir al man. serving more than one body; thc-ret,i& no reason for debarring an enginoer, priyatei practice. But there arc- the very btet of reasons why the locd body, which, gives a nan a fixed salary should be his first care. If contractors or people who have statutory duties to> the borough may coomj before the borcugh, and tlie engineer when serviDg them ben disclaim responsibility ta the borough, tlien the soofner an ariangement which permits this is revised the betteo*. Any private emplcyer would insist on. it; and a local body. cannot do less/ Tlie adniitted financial tnvnaactdon^ between tlie tDgineea" and certain, , contractors wtre at any rate most injudicious to ha.y the least, iliat can be said. The Council having sat over four 'liours in deciding on matters of fact had no time to oonwder future arrangements, but we doubt not that at next meeting it will approach tlie duty of making such arrangements as may be calculated to prevent the recurrence, of such n'i&.ttors as it had to deal witih, ; oa Monday evening. .