MUNICIPAL MATTERS AT TAURANGA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9531, 25 November 1889, Page 5

MUNICIPAL MATTERS AT TAURANGA.

INDIGNATION MEETING. [BY .TELEGRAPH. —OWN COEEESPONDENT. ] ' Tauranga, Saturday. A public meeting was held last night to discuss questions of importance to the borough, and particularly the way the burgess roll has been compiled, • and to express an opinion on the way in which the borough has" been allowed to drift into litigation, owing to a section of the Council refusing to allow Mr. Firth Wrigley's name to Dβ placed on the roll, and who has applied to the Supreme Court to compel the Council to do so. A requisition was presented to the Mayor, asking him to Cill a public meeting, to which he at first assented., bub subsequently reconsidered the matter, and refused to call the meeting; thereupon the requisitionists called the meeting themselves, and invited the Mayor to attend, to which invitation he refused to accede. In the absence of his Worship the other candidate for election to the mayoralty, Mr. R. i S. Galbraith, was called upon to take the chair. Mr. D. Lundon, Captain. E. G. ft orris, Colonel Dowell, V.C., and others gave some startling illustrations of tho way in which names had been placed on the burgees roll, and equally startling illustrations of how others had been persistently kept off. In the case of Colonel Dowell himself the Council refused to put his name on the roll till peremptorily ordered to do so by the Property Tax Commissioner. The following resolutions were passed amidst vociferous applause : —l. That this meeting is of opinion that tho action taken by a majority of the borough councillors in connection with the valuation and burgess list is highly reprehensible, and that they have forfeited the confidence of the; burgesses. 2. That this meeting is of opinion that those members of the Borough Council who voted for litigation should be compelled to pay the costs in terms of clause 176 of the Municipal Corporations Act. 3. That this meeting regrets that tho Mayor should have shown such a want of respect to the ratepayers who signed the requisition as to decline to accede to their request, and hopes that no future Mayor will decline to convene a meeting when requested to do so by a respectfully- requisition to discuss matters of public importance.