WATER FOR WAIKOUAITI.

Otago Witness, Issue 3006, 25 October 1911, Page 53

WATER FOR WAIKOUAITI.

OPPOSITION TO THE PROPOSAL. The question of raising a loan for the purpose of installing' a water supply in the Waikouaiti Borough has been for a very long time a vexed one among the ratepayers, and the- council now proposes on Wednesday next to take a poll of the ratepayers to decide whether £9OOO shall I>> borrowed for the purpose. A good deal of discussion has centred round the matter, and a certain section of the ratepayers has offered vigorous opposition to the proposal. The story as outlined to a representative of this paper by a gentleman interested in the matter, and whose sympathies are not with the supporters of the movement, makes interesting- reading. In the ©a-rly part of this year the Waikouaiti Borough Council decided to raise a loan of £6500 for the purpose' of installing a water supply in the borough. Included in the area over which it was proposed to levy a special rate to secure the loan was a large farming area containing a number of farms whose occupants would not be in a position to benefit by the water servioe. This section of the ratepayers objected to the proposal under the provisions of the Local Bodies' Loans Act. Those objections were heard by a magistrate, who ordered that all farming land should be excluded from the area to which tho special water rate should apply. The result of that order was that the scheme oould not be carried to a conclusion because the rates payable by the ratepayers who would benefit by installation were not ot. themselves sufficient to pay the interest on the loan without the aid of the rates which it was hopecf "would have been levied on the farmers. The scheme was therefore abandoned. The Borough Council was not to be frustrated in its desire, however, and it has now gone to work to raise a special loan of £9OOO. still with the idea of installing the water, the loan to be secured! by an annual special rate on the rateable value of all the .rateable property within the borough, including the farming area previously referred to. It is apparently assumed that as the present is -a new proposal the order of the magistrate excluding the farming area from the rateable area will have no effect, and as, by the legislation of last year, it is not necessary to call a meeting of the • electors to consider the proposal for raising the loan, the farmers may be foroed into the scheme in spite of themselves and of the magistrate's order. We are informed that protests have been made on behalf of the farmers, and that although it was at first intended to hoLd a public meeting, arrangements for it were cancelled when it became known that one of the objecting farmers had retained counsel from Dunedin to appear and place the obj'ector's side of the case before the meeting. The result of the poll seems present to be a foregone conclusion, seeing that the farmers are largely outnumbered by the smaller ratepayers in the central portion of the borough. It is understood that the farmers some time ago petitioned to be severed from the borough and included in the county, but, at the request of the Borough Council, they withdrew their petition, A petition is now to be prepared to revive tho question of separation, and it seems-.as if the new effort to bring water into tho borough will bring about its dismemberment. If the proposal to install water is carried, and the separation of the farming area from" the borough should be effected, the borough, will be faced with a very serious financial position.