LAKE COUNTY OFFICIALS.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1521, 26 February 1886, Page 5

LAKE COUNTY OFFICIALS.

Sib, —On reading the last report of the County Council meeting, I would like to know what will an engineer have to do when ail the roa<la are nearly completed ? Surely a competent engineer would not take the billet for leu titan 1000 or £6OO a year ? But the question is how will it be before he can find the ins and outs of these mountain mads and tracks, and where damage is likely to lie done by floods. 1 vouchsafe that it woiild take any strange man two or three years to serve ins time to such. As a ratepayer I would soouer give Inspector Powell £706 a year than a stranger. The reasons I give are that he knows more about our roails than all the engineers iu Otago, for he has l»een inspector for the last 19 years in this county alone, ami is the worst paid ot£cer in the Council for the work he has to do —out in cold and wet, suow and sleet. There it not a ratepayer in the county but knows that our inspector has done his duty honestly as a man should do, and every ratepayer in the county ought to stop this ntiderliami work at once. Surely there must be something very crooked at work to get our inspector rooted out. Will any of the councillors that voted against Mr Powell lie manly enough to let all ratepayers know what is against Sir Powell? If the Council wish to peusion the Chairman, I consider Mr Inspector Powell, who has been a painstaking and conscientious inspector for 19 years iu the district, should Le pensioned off for life.

I notice by the last report of the proceedings of the Council in Committee, that for the motiou by Messrs Bute men t and Aspiuall—that Inspector Powell's resignation be accepted—four voted for it, and that for the amendment—that the Inspector's resignation be not accepted— three voted. Now, bow was it the Chairman did not vote on either aide? Surely it was cut and dried before the Council met ? If I mistake not one of the regulation* or standiug orders of the Council is that every member present at a meeting muti record his vote. We hear occasionally of members stopjjipg away md shirking thair duties vbis any dLluato matter

is likely to come on the board ; but here ia a mem he i who, aUtve all othera, should set an example of boldness and impartiality, sitting apathetically by and Betting the by-lawa at defiance! It ia a significant fact, with respect to the resignation of both Mr Powell and Mr Boult, the Clerk, that Mr Boyea had the power to veto both motions that were carried —in fact, he let things go by the board. 1 wonder what our pattern Chairman would have done had Mr M'Dougall been at the last meeting, for I guess he would have bad to give a casting vote in one of the cases abovementioned.

Horiug I have not trespassed too much on your valuable apace, I am, etc., A Ratepateb. Lake Hayes, February 13, 18S6.