PORT CHALMERS AFFAIRS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19762, 13 April 1926, Page 4

PORT CHALMERS AFFAIRS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sib,—Mr Tail’s letter was very long, but it was very short. Any ordinary ratepayer like myself would have liked to hear more about that antecedent liability, about who was mayor when the ratepayers were saddled with the old gasworks, and about different things which have meant money out of the ratepayers’ pockets. . I do not suppose that the present council is any bettor than its predecessors, but it has stirred up things a bit, and it is a kind of satisfaction just to know how your good money had been thrown away. Nobody is annoyed about it of course, but you cannot help hankering to know, for instance, how it was that all the borough’s obligations to pay in connection with Mussel Bay and the docks were so neatly parcelled up into a legal agreement, while all the Harbour Board’s obligations were allowed to float round in the kind of thing known as a gentlemen’s agreement. When I went to Sunday School I liked to ‘‘There is a happy land, far, far away, ’ and it still seems to be a bit in the distance.

Mr Tait has made out a good case for himself as every good man' doeßj but a mere ratepayer is curious to learn about a lot of costly things which Mr Tait hardly mentions. He might tell us in his next letter if it is true that, since he became town clerk, the borough has had to pay £6O a year for a health inspector and £BO for a valuer. lam told, but you cannot believe everything you hear, that his predecessor did all that work as part of his duties. If that is so, then Mr Tait has been more costly although he says the town clerk was always poorly paid. He says the work in the office was eight months behind when he took over the job of town clerk. I believe Mr Tait, but it is hardly the thing, you know, to publish a reflection like that on the office staff. I do not mind a smoke myself when the boss is not looking, but to let the work get eight months behind they must have been playing football and cricket in office hours. It strikes me as kind of queer, too, that Mr Tait never noticed it when he was Mayor or councillor, and when he was chairman o l Finance he never seems to have noticed that there was something far more important very much behind. It looks as if the Mayor and the chairman of Finance had a game of cricket now and again with the office staff. The ratepayer has. to pay, but he does not mind . when there is somebody about to “Indite latters.’’ It is very comforting. Mr Tait speaks of that antecedent liability of £BOOO when ho took over. That must mean that the council’s expenditure was exceeding the income about £2OOO a year. It was in the war years, too, when the council was getting a big revenue from selling water to the ships. As Mr Tait was Mayor .about that time, he might tell, us bow it happened. He says that Cr Lunn frittered it away. I like that, I do not like Cr Lunn I wonder if Cr Lunn frittered any of it way in putting a new path and a concrete channel in front of a mayoral residence. It is not nice to think of Cr Lunn frittering and frittering away thousands of pounds and the counci] never noticing it. As Mr Tait has put his boot into the sleeping dogs, we might bear something about the days when “fill ’em up again” was very popular, and the antecedent liability was making a healthy growth. Was Mr Tait councillor, or mayor, or town clerk, or town manager, or chairman of the Finance Committee when the council popped 6d on to one rate and camouflaged it by taking jd off’ another rate. The ratepayers don’t mind. Tlje sleeping dogs that have been kicked might let out something about buying a gasworks for £2500 and borrowing £7OOO to pay for them. A little “red. eye” on such an occasion one can understand, but that does not bridge the gap between the bargain price and the cost price. Any old thing will do me, for all I want to know is bow the rates are frittered away. It would he a mistake to hoard up big municipal surpluses. Somebody might run away with them, as they ran away with the lights of the mtunda two or three years ago and left King Edward square in darkness ever since.—l am etc.. Only a Eatepateh.