MACKENZIE COUNTY AFFAIRS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20667, 4 March 1937, Page 9

MACKENZIE COUNTY AFFAIRS

To the Editor of “ The Timaru Herald." Sir, —At a recent meeting of the Mackenzie County Council, the engineer is reported to have stated that “if the Council said to the Government that the rate bill was too high, the fact that other local body rate bills were higher would be pointed out. The Council would have to watch and not make a laughing stock of itself by doing that.” Now, sir, this reveals the reason of the persistent rise in rates. Apparently, the engineer considers that until our ratebill is the highest in New Zealand, the grumbling ratepapers have nothing to complain about. With a docile Council he appears to be dictator, and so our finances have been allowed to run amok. It should be pointed out that the Council is there for the benefit of the ratepayers—fiirst, second, and third, and is not a charitable institution or an organisation to dance to the tune of an extravagant, squandering and short-sighted Government. If, at the last election, the ratepayers had known that the rates were going to be raised every year they would not have elected the present Council. Under these circumstances, and before the deplorable state of our finances gets worse, the Council ought to resign and give the ratepayers a chance to conserve their interests and put in a proper county engineer not a Government engineer. The ballot box is the proper test of confidence. —I am, etc., DISGUSTED