MACKENZIE COUNTY COUNCIL.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIIC, Issue 14238, 2 July 1910, Page 6

MACKENZIE COUNTY COUNCIL.

• MONTHLY MEETING. • Til# ,>imonthly meeting of the MacJtauue County Uouuuu was held at Mftirije yesterday. .Present—Messrs I'. ty. (iLliingham (chairman,), J. S. Rutherford, iii. Bohiaopi'ar, 1). StewBJ \ 'K. Guthrie, Tas. bnuth, •R, Irving, and A. S. Smith. / DISPUTED MINUTES. y>a the chairman asking for the conni/motion qi the muiuDes, Mr Guthrie challenged their rorrectness in. one r&ypeot. Has name appeared as having 7/oted against a. certain motion whereas he said he had not' voted either yraf.

The chairman said that Mr Guthrie had spoken against the motion, if he did not actually vote against it. Mr Guthrie admitted that, but said that neither ho nor Mr Rutherford hud voted either way. Mr Rutherford 6aid that was so. The chairman asked Mr Guthrie to propose in what direction he desired to. iiavo the minutes amended, and after a good deal of argument, Mr Guthrie proposed that his name be deleted as having voted against the motion, and that the minutes should state tbat he and Mr Rutherford rafrained from voting. On /this motion being put, Messrs Guthrie and Rutherford voted for it, and (Messrs Stewart, A. S. Smith and Irving, against. Messrs T. Smith and Schwepfer did not vote because they wera not present- at last meeting. Eh. motion was therefor© lost.

AN ACTION CONDEMNED. The _ chairman roundly condemned fcfca action of a member of the Council, Mr. Guthrie, in having written to the "Timaru Herald," in such terms as. hi© had, after last meeting of th« Council. Mr Guthrie had questioned the .accuracy of a report and made an unwarranted attack upon him as chairman. Aa a matter of fact the report which appeared in tho "Herald" was perfectly correct, almost word for 1 word of what transpired. Nd sensible man who had heard what gaTe rise to the report, could say otherwise. The whole of the letter was- in exceedingly had taste, and he had never before hoard of public mom writing to a newspaper, such spiteful, slanderous, and untruthful rubbish.

Mr Guthrie rose to speak, but: the chairman said he would hear no more from Mr Guthrie on the subject. He had had his say in the newspaper, and now he hnd been replied to. ENGINEER'S REPORT.

Bie County Engineer, Mr R. L. Banjos, reported that in Albury riding the work on the Mackenzie Pass road, with the exception of the shingling of the Coal Pit hill, had been complied. Approached and wing fences to the stock bridges on the some Toad had been finished and some small promised works in Albury township are now in hand. The teams would shift to Cavo riding next week. In , the JTairlio Tiding shingling on roa& to Mr C. B. Jones' holding; had been completed and repairs done to Ashwick farm road and school _ road. He recommended that the formation of the. rood near Silverstream be deferred

until summer as it was now in a very j sloppy state. In tho Tekapo riding re- ; paops and light shingling had been dona on the Tekapo road near Edward's Creek. M. Sheehan had made little (progress with his contract at Edward's Creek during the month. Sniow and hard ijrosts acoounted in part for this. During the month the planting at Edward's Creek had been do 110 as arranged, and it appeared to hava been satisfactorily carried out. Regarding the petition of Mr Roberts and others for shingling on Burnett's toad, Cave riding, he found that the length of road was about 115 chains. (The cost, allowing for a light coat of jsay 8 cubic yards per chain would be j about £lB5. He had inspected the ■street in Silverstream townsliij) complained of by Mr Clarkson as being i blocked. It was a 50 link blind road jat the back of' the township, over- ! grown with corse and broom. It was j fenced off by Mr John Bain, and I could not be of any use to the residents as it led nowhere, and Mr j Bain's land was on either side of it. j Regarding Mr Gidding's application j for an additional plank on the footj bridge over the Opihi river at Mr W. ; Bains' an additional plank and handirail would cost £42. This would give |a. width of two feet. To provide for j a width of 8 feet the cost woiild be say £72. Complaints had been received as to the Opihi bridge on Allandale j road being dangerously slippy in j frosty weather, and he referred the 'matter to tho Geraldine County CounI cil's inspector. j It was decided that work in the ; Tekapo riding be left to the engineer; j that the worst parts of Burnett's road :be shingled; that the engineer should | enquire whether the Silverstream road is dedicated to the Crown; • that one ' plank and a handrail be added to the "bridge over the Opihi. CORRESPONDENCE.

The secretary to the Timaru Harbour Board advised tbat a rate of 3-16 d in tho £ had been struck for the ensuing year. \V. M. Bolt and Co., applied_ for a slaughter-house license, and it was agreed to forward the application to the Department with the Council's approval. The Bruce County Council wrote forwarding a. motion it had passed, and asking ths Mackezie Council to support it. It was to the effect that tho Government be asked to amend the Rating Act by making it compulsory upon conveyances for owners, to give written notice to the local authorities of every change of ownership or [Occupancy of rateable property, j It was decided to supi>ort this, and lon the suggestion of tho County I Clerk, it was decided to ask also, that Land Boardslbe instructed not to grant I transfers of Crown lands until such jtime as all rates are paid on a propj erty. j The Minister for Public Works I wrote that he was making enquiry in j regard to the request for a grant of ; £I2OO for metalling and general I improvement to the Lake Tekapo and [Lake Pukaki road.

The Treasury advised that the sum of £4l 10s for work on Clayton road had been paid to the credit of the CounciL

Mr G. J. Smith, Eimbell, wrote that Mr Bain had fenced off a creek which prevented him from getting water from it. —It was decided to take nc action.

| \V. M. Bolt and Co., Albury, wrote ] asking the Council to extend the crossling in front of their premises, as in jts present state, it was dangerous.— 'Request granted. ! Messrs Black and Sons, wrote in re- ' gard to their contract at Simon's Pass, .that it was unsafe to shift there at tho present time. They would like ' the Council to allow tho work to stand iiover until th« spring.—Received. I : J. O'Neill, Winsoombo, wrote asking j whether he would be allowed compenjsation for rock taken from the quarry |on his land. —£5 to be given. DEPUTATIONS.

Messrs Sheehan and O'Neill waited on the Council to ask that the metal on Neil's road be broken smaller. — The matter was referred to tho engineer. | Messrs Goodwin, Foden and Binney waited on the Council to ask that the Council should withdraw from isale, their section at the corner of tho main Mackenzie and tho Allandale roads, in the township. They thought that if sold, an. inferior building might be erected on it, and it mght be wanted some day when Fairlio has a Town Board. « Mr Goodwin snid_ he would lite to see a Carnegie Institute erected on this section.

The Council decided to withdraw tins and other sections from sale. GENERAL. The chairman mentioned that ho thought an amendmeit of the Local Elections Act was desirable, in the direction of making it clear that the number of votes- polled at every little pla.ce should not be published, but only the final result. At the present the Act was ambiguous on this point, though , ifc, appeared to him that the intention was to preserve absolute secreey as to how a''person voted, and this being so only the result and the poll should be published. "When the mqnber of votes cost at every little booth waa published, it was often com.paratively easy to guess how different peftple had voted. —The chairman was XuAed to bring the matter up as a Seaifk. itft the Counties Conference. |(f 'Rutiharford drew attention to the TMtA far impKwrfng the Mount Nessing road, and it was decided that the work sho-uk? I dons when the gang.is available. Mr BcHaepfep referred' to the need for a small cottage hospital at Fairlie, and offered to give a contribution towaids it himself.—The matter was discussed, but no definite action was taken, the chairman stating that ho would be pleised to reoeive offers of a room. It was reported that Mr BVaser lad .forieit«cL ££46) 1m

Jm<J paid oil a section. ho Agreed soraa tiiu« ago to buy num tho Council. Mr, Tas. Smith suggested that iho narrow cuttings at lVla Waro should' ba widened, as they hauiiJeiod travelling stock and were a source of danger to vehicular trai'iic, as there was no room f-or a frightened horse to get av/ay irom a motor car, or irom the railway train which, runs cioso to these cuttings. Mr. Irving thought there was other work much more pressing than this, and tho chairman pointed out that no provision had been made on tho estimates for it.—lt was decided that the engineer should report on tho oust.

THE liATE. A general rato of -jd in. the £ was a water rate of id ill the £ in F&irlie, and a lire ■ brigade rate oi 5-16 d in the £. NOTICE OF MOTION.

Mr Tas. Smith' brought forward his notiea of motion "that steps be taken to legalise the irregular expenditure on Mr Guthrie's traffic bridge.' 1 Mr Schlaepfer seconded, pro forma. The mover said that- "Usis | bridge erected oil the main road at j Burke's Pass, had been built out of j "fourths" accrued on the pastoral j lease held, by Mr Guthrie. The law said that such money must Be spent | on public road lines, but this br-dge ; was partly on Mr Guthrie's freehold, j and to this extent the expenditure : was illegal. It was only a matter of j a, few yards that the bridge encroach- j ed on the freehold land, but the irre- | gularity should be put in order, as at | present, Mr Guthrie had power to order any one off the bridge, and lie j had threatened to keep it as a pri- | vata bridge. _ i This, Mr Guthrie stoutly denied, i and he further said that thore were plenty of places in the county where, private property crossed a road line and the Council had spent rates on such property. He was quite willing to give the Council the little bit of freehold on wliich this bridgo encroached, provided Mr Smith would act similarly in respect of a strip of land wliich crossed a public load on his property. Mr Smith said there was no analogy between the two cases, j Mir Guthrie said there was; and ito be consistent, if the Council ac- ' quired this bit of land from liim they I must acquire little bits which en-

croached on public road lines all over ; the county. To do so however, would i be a sheer wast-a of money as no end ; would be served. In any case, the ' Land Board, and not the Council, was !the responsible party, as the expend i- ■ ture of "fourths" to give access to sections could only be carried out with the consent of the Board, and the 1 Board bad given its consent to the expenditure for the bridge in qucstion. Mr Smith saH yes; but the Board liad done so under a. misapprehension, i Mr Rutherford said that he knew ' of two oases at Albury where the i Land Board bad refused to sanction I the expenditure of on i bridges intended to give access "to j Crown leaseholds, the reason given, | being that they could not legally do ; co. _ | The chairman said that tho Board I were probably unaware that the bridge i would encroach on Mr Guthrie's freeiliold when they sanctioned the exponjditure. Ho did not think there was : any need for the Council to take action, and suggested that tho matter jshould be left" to the Land Board to take action or not, as it pleased. The Council adopted this course. ACCOUNTS. jAeoounts were passed for payment, and the Council rose.