SUPPLY OF POWER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21910, 20 September 1934, Page 16

SUPPLY OF POWER

CENTRAL WAIKATO BOARD LOANS CONVERSION SUCCESS POLL ON RAGLAN EXTENSION [from our own correspondent] HAMILTON. Wednesday It was reported by the secretary, Mr. H. J. Beeche, at a meeting to-day of the Central Waikato Electric-Power Board, that of loans valued at £286,458, £283,258, or 98.9 per cent, had been taken up at the new interest rates. Of the balance, £2500 was held by absentee debenture-holders who would convert as soon as the position was placed before them. There remained £7OO still to be dealt with.

The engineer, Mr. J. R. Ellis, reported that the 11,000-volt extension along the Glen Murray Road had been completed and that most of the consumers' installations had been connected and livened up. An additional 11,000-volt transformer had been erected at Puketaha and an improvement in the service had been effected Settlers along the Matahura Valley Road had been advised that the cost of reticulating their area would be £1515, and that a guaranteed revenue of £252 10s a year would be required. Sufficient poles having come to hand the work of extending the power at Te Kowhai was now in hand.

The question of restoration of the reductions made in the salaries of employees was discussed and it was decided that the salaries of three juniors and a meter-reader be increased. Mr. W. Lee Martin gave notice that he would move that the restoration of the cuts be made at the nest meeting of the board.

With a view to suiting the convenience of ratepayers the board had considered using its office in Hamilton as a polling place in connection with the Raglan loan proposal. Legal advice was sought on the point and the board's solicitors wrote that there was no authority for establishing polling places outside the board's district, and therefore it was not legal to have votes recorded in an office situated in the borough of Hamilton. The board decided to take steps to secure legislation authorising the use of the board's office as a polling booth. The poll is to be held next Wednesday in the Raglan district on the raising of a loan of £22,000 with which to reticulate the area.