MORE MUNICIPAL MUDDLING.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVI, Issue XLVI, 3 July 1911, Page 8

MORE MUNICIPAL MUDDLING.

(To the Editor. J Six.—When will the Nelson ratepayers get a City Council with ordinary common sense"? If there is one- thing more than another that mistakes have been made over in the past dt is in s'tonecrusliers. We had a good machine :it was discarded and sold for £7O in order to buy an unsuitable machine.for £3CO. The City Council's own staff to'.d them they were making a mistake—they sacked one of the men who told them—and bought the pxesent machine. It is. new said to h-2 an utter" 1 failure and is discarded by. the present Council —without a trial even—while the old one is still working aAvay merrily in the North Itsland as good as ever. Yet, now the present Council is doin<r if possible an even- more stupid thing. Th. 3 former Council did have the sense to ask its staff's opinion, even if they did not ta'ke "it. The present Council" has not even .horse sense enough to do that. If they did they would find that every practical man en their staff condemn.* the new £SCiO big stationary machine as unsuitable. Not- only that, out it is said that Mr. Jickell's opinion was asked when he was in Nelson the other day and that he unhesitatingly said that a portable stone crusher b\' the same maker that our own road roller drive was the one we wanted, at a cost of £l5O less. He recommended the same size of machine that 'he had ;been using with most satisfactory results' for j-eaxs'past in Palmerston The' new Council wants Mr. Jickell's 'opinion on the big dam —because it is said he is in favour of repairing it—which agrees with its fads; !but it doesn't want Mr. Jickell's cpin"on on the stone-exusher —because it doesn't agree with its fads. To put the matter in a nutshell, the Council is buying a huge stationary machine which it has no power to drive and will always 'be dependent on big hired engines which are not always to be nixed when they are wanted, or it will have to spend artofcher £6Co or more to buy a big engine to work this stone-crusher." The smaller crusher Mr. Jickell savs can "be worked by their own road-roHex. One Councillor says the huge fixed stone-crusher will cost only £ls for foundation —does he expect anyone to believe this? The present City Council seems determined t;> outdo any of its predecessors in want of common sense. I am, etc., ; . RATEPAYER.