FAILURE OF PETITION

Taranaki Daily News, 15 July 1935, Page 8

FAILURE OF PETITION

NO NORMANBY MERGER COMMISSIONER GIVES FINDING. INSUFFICIENT VALID SIGNATURES. VALUATION ROLL AND RATE BOOK.

Representations that the Normanby Town Board’s area should be merged with the Hawera County Council have failed, according to the finding of the. Commissioner, Mr. F. H. Waters, delivered to the county office on Saturday. The representations were made by petition and Mr. Waters, who is the Commissioner of Crown Lands at New Plymouth, was appointed by the county to inquire into the validity of the signatures to the petition. A public hearing .was held in the Normanby Town Hall on June 28.

The representations for the merger were made by ratepayers who contended that the inner area of the town board’s district (the outer area was merged with the county on April 1, 1934) was not strong enough financially to stand alone. -A petition to that effect was presented, to the county, but in following weeks requests were received from various signatories that their names should be removed and a counterpetition was presented. As a position of stalemate appeared to have been reached the county exercised statutory rights and appointed Mr. Waters to inquire into the validity of the signatures to the petition for merger. In his finding, Mr. Waters said the number of ratepayers in the board’s area was 132, and as he could only , determine that there were 59 true signatures to the petition, the finding must go against the petitioners. He mentioned that the rate book and valuation roll of the board’s district were not in agreement. At the inquiiy, Mr. R. J. O’Dea appeared for the town board, which opposed the petition, Mr. M. J. Burns for the petitioners, and Mr. J. H. Houston for the county, which adopted a neutral attitude. CLERK’S DECLARATION. In giving his finding, Mr. Waters detailed his appointment under statutory regulations. The first matter he had had to determine, he said, was whether the county clerk’s declaration accompanying the petition was in order. A section of the Counties Act, 1920, called for a declaration from a county clerk that persons signing a petition were qualified to do so and that it had been signed by the requisite number of ratepayers. He had ascertained, continued Mr. Waters, that the Hawera County Clerk had made the declaration after checking the names of petitioners with a ratepayers’ list supplied by the Valuer-General. Actually he should have made the check from the board’s rate book, access to which had, however, been denied him by the town clerk and chairman of the town board. By the invocation of another section of the Act, the clerk could have compelled the chairman and town clerk to produce the book, but as the council wished to adopt a neutral attitude, he was reluctant to adopt such a course. The declaration was therefore prima facie irregular. “In my opinion, the county clerk was justified in making the declaration,” said Mr. Waters. “He had recently been engaged by the Normanby Town Board to assist in bringing its valuation roll up to date and had in his possession a ratepayers’ list certified to by the ValuerGeneral as being in agreement with the town board's valuation roll. He would also know from experience that the particulars entered in the rate book are to be taken from the valuation roll and his declaration was in order and conscientiously made.” NUMBER OF RATEPAYERS. The next question he had had to determine was whether in terms of the Act, the petition had been signed by the requisite number of ratepayers. A petition presented to a council was required to be signed by not less than a majority of the ratepayers of a district possessing in the aggregate not less than half the rateable property. The petition had been presented on January 23, 1935, when a receipt of acknowledgment had been given by the county clerk. Requests were afterwards lodged by certain signatories and other requests to have their names reinstated were made. A counterpetition was presented on February 9, but the signing of a counter-petition after the presentation of the original petition could not, in Mr. Waters’ opinion, operate as a withdrawal. The question of determination of the number of signatures that could be allowed to remain on the petition had then to be considered. The document of withdrawal of signatures had apparently been presented on January 17, and therefore it validly operated to withdraw certain names from the merger petition. It was evident that the rate book and the valuation roll were not in agreement, but in view of a section of the Rating Act, 1925, which stated that the rate book so signed, with corrections( if any) so initialled, should be conclusive evidence in all courts of the correctness of the contents, without proof of such signatures, he had had to accept the rate book as correct. As the book contained the names of 132 ratepayers the number of true signatures on the petition fell short of the necessary majority. While he had no means of ascertaining the number of ratepayers on the rate book as on the date of the presentation of the petition, he could say that it did not agree with the valuation roll as drawn up by the Valuer-General. “From information supplied me by that officer,” said Mr. Waters in conclusion, "the valuation roll does not contain, the names, all of which are in the rate book, of the following persons: Mrs. E. Archbold, Messrs. L. Sowerby, P. McAlindon, C. E. Stewart, H. F. Wylie, H. E. Harris, O. W. R. Cox, M. E. Hughes, B. Hughes, R. P. Clarkson’s estate, Taranaki Egg-Laying Competition, D. A. Stewaxt jun., G. N. Stewart and R. Hayward. ADVERTISERS’ ANNOUNCEMENTS. A long night dance will be held at the Fraser Roa hall on Friday. Special efforts to make the Kaponga Oddfellows’ Ball on July 25 a success are being made by the committee, including special decorations, popular dances, a good orchestra, several novelties and a spoon and fork supper.