THE MAYOR'S SCHEME.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4615, 11 April 1893, Page 4

THE MAYOR'S SCHEME.

DISCUSSION IN THE CITY COUNCIL. Daring the progress of the City Council meeting last nif?hfc, Councillor Gray moved the adjournment of the Council to enable him to disouas tbe statements made by the Mayor at the publio meeting on Friday, and which he said had been made without the Councillors having had the pleasure oE diaoußßing the great soheme then pro-, pounded. Without such an opportunity : the Council was: lifcely to suffer in the eyes of the public, aa the statements then made would go by default if they did not make reply. The statement made at the public meeting had not only dealt with the proposed great scheme, but affected some of the Councillors personally, including himself. He was not . going to trench on its personal features at all, as, so far aa he waa concerned, he did not care anything about such criticisms ; but so many of the statements made were not only incorrect and misleading, but positively in direct contra- ' diction to fact, that it was the Council's duty to refute them. The scheme might: be a gceat one. For his part he failed to see its greatness, but it certainly was not a good scheme. The Mayor had begun by telling the ratepayers that the Council was continually piling up tiie overdraft year by year, till it now amounted to something enormous, whereas the fact waa that the present Counoil had caused a decrease in the overdraft equal to vSIOOO a year during ' the last three years. 'The overdraft had been . primarily caused by the expenditure of the loans, and they had set about reducing the .amount successfully, whereas the Mayor had tried to show that his scheme could be carried out and relieve the ratepayers of this burden. He (Councillor Gray) intended to show that if tbe scheme were carried out they would be in a worse plight than now. At the present time they had an overdraft of .£5199 5s 9d, with outstanding accountn of .£167 Oa 3d ; but they had a perfect right to take credit for having paid £86l .4s 4d for all the stone that would be required to be used during the winter. Then they had amounts due to them to the extent .of JBI2LI, viz., Government subsidy .£450, fire insurance grant .£294, rates JB24(X and other items 4260, making a total of £2075 4s 4d, which would reduce the overdraft to .£3281 2s Bd, which, taken together with the Cemetery account, brought the position of the account to .£5084 14s 3d, instead of, as the Mayor represented to the public, £6500. Bearing in mind, that two yeara ago the gross excess was J28780, it would be seen that they had reduced it at the rate of £1000 a year for three years. Such being the case it was grossly unfair to bolster up the scheme with such misstatements. Then with regard to the streets, none of them had received the usual repairs as yet, as it was always left till the autumn and winter to do that wort, when the metal would be properly bound. He took exception ito making direct charges and statements respecting the streets whioh were not in accordance with fact?. The Mayor had said the streets were dirty, filthy and so on. Possibly tbe Mayor h»d travelled, but so had other people, and they were quite as capable of judging of the way in which | Btreets were made or kept as the Mayor j Was. (Hear, hear.) He would , assert, without fear of contradiction, that the streets and footpaths in Christchurch compared favourably with those in any city in the Colonies, and he Btrongly deprecated any wild statement that they were ; a ] disgrace to the city.. The Mayor had ; , also said that the clook tower had been in the Council yard for twenty- five years.. It was only a . small matter, but to show j . how untrue ifc was, he might inform Mm j that it had not been in , the Council yard more than fourteen or fifteen, years. Another rash statement was that in which the Mayor had Baid that thera was no accountant on the Finance ' Committee. . Councillor Appleby had been a member of the Finance Committee from the time he was first elected a member cf the Council until the present time. He would 6efc the Mayor's estimate against his own, and Bhow the contrast. The Mayor's figures were : Overdraft ,£6500, Colombo street bridge £1500, Eaßb belt bridge £2500, " Squares £2000, river banks £2500, Clock tower £350, asphalting streets £14,650, making a total of £30,000. Allowing £5084 as the actual overdraft as above shown, he Councillor Gray, waa in favour of having a bridge built at the East belt if they : could afford it. Begarding the Colombo street bric'ge, the people at the north-east Bide of the town were looking forward to having a proper structure, and on a previous occasion he had advocated setting aside a fund, so that when a new bridge was required they should have one to cost£3ooo. At that time the City Surveyor had estimated that the present bridge would, with ordinary repairs, last fifteen years, and possibly longer. So that if they should prefer to erect a new bridge there he should estimate the coat at £3000, as it would be useless to remove the present structure in favour of a £1.500 one. Ho would allow . J82500 for the East, belt bridge, but doubted if that would be sufficient for the purpose. He would also allow the Mayor's item of £2000 for the improvement of the squares, and though the Reserves Committee had only recently estimated the necessary expenditure on the river banks ac £500 to JB7OO, he would admit the Mayor's ideas and allow £2000 aa a luxury. When he, as Mayor, had looked about for a monument or pedestal on which to have bis name handed down to posterity he had consulted the surveyor respecting the clock tower, and then found that a basement would cost £800 ; that was the lowest cost at which it could be properly etected. These amounts alone brought the figures up to £15,384. Asphalting the streets was a debatable Numbers of persons to whom he had spoken were very much opposed to it, as it would be rough on the horseß, by injuring their ankles, causing them to slip, and rendering accidents very frequent. But, passing that pha«e of it by, the Mayor's estimate of the co=t was Is 9d per yard for laying it. The Council had frequently contemplated putting down wooden crossings on the main streets, but it had been found too expensive, as it was three times the cost of asphalting. The result was that they had adhered to the latter, which had cost 5a a yard. The Mayot'u ettimato must have been for footpaths, which would not stand many hours of ordinary road traffic. Thea he had omitted to state what it would coat to pick up the streets and lay the new material. The Council already had that experience, and knew that it would coat as much or more than laying the new stuff, and it must be carted away. ' He estimated the co3t at 53 per yard if done in large quantities, but even assuming that it could be done at 43 a yard, five mileß would co3t £26,400, whioh, allowing £216 for contingencies, would bring the Mayor's proposals, under a loir estimate, up to £42,000. In thia nothing was allowed for surveying, engineering, drawings, supervision, &c, for which with works of that nature there would be a heavy bill. The ratepayers would not entertain the idea of the Mayor himself doing the work, and, seeing that, in his scheme the City Surveyor was wiped out of existence, the charges would be heavy. Then to consider the annual charges on thia amount, The interest and Binking fund < alone would amount at five per cent to £2520. The repairs to the asphalting were set down by the Mayor at £500, but he (Councillor Gray) knew, and the experience of this Council was, that that would bo totally inadequate. Their own crossings wf ro constantly breaking away and required renewing and repairs besides r gular top dressing, so that he assumed the lowest estimate to be 2d per yard, equal to £1100 for the maintenance of th« streota, and he would allow the Mayor's estimate of £300 a year for the maintenance of the river banks and Squaree. That brought the annual charge 3 up to £3920. At the present time the Council was paying £2400 for interest and sinking fund on the £35.000 loan, and the interest rind sinking fund on the £25,000 and £6000 loan brought the charges up to s£d in the £, and if this other amount were added it would make a total of £6765 to be paid for interest and sinking fund on loans annually, or an amount equal to B|d in the £, which would not leave much for the other exopnp"^. One mutter in connection with the overdraft ought to be noticed,

and that waa that in the recent readjust* ment of the gaa contract they had effected suoh a saving as would pay all the interest on their present overdraft. If that were taken into consideration, it would be seen that they got their overdraft for nothing. Then with regard to the savings. The Mayor was going to save £978 in salaries alone. He (Councillor Gray) did not Bee how it was going to be done. He had supported a mdvement infavonr of a reduction of their office expenses on two or three occasions, but did not see how a saving, could be effected just then. They might effect a reduction of about £400 a year, but he doubted if they could do more than that. The proposal to do away with the rate collector was monstrous, therefore they must include the £160 for that officer. The idea of doing without inspectors was a crude one. It had to be remembered that they were a central Board of Health, and were bound j to provide sanitary inspectors, beside providing for the inspection of cabs, lodging-houses, 4c. Therefore they must have at least one such official, so that £383 had to be taken off the item reductions. If Mr Walkdeii were to be extinguished there would be engineering and survey fees, and with an allowance of £100 for these, the Mayor's reductions vanished. If he could save £750 off the street watering he would be performing a miracle, seeiDg that it only coßt la9t year £485 7s 6d. The statement that £700 would be saved in road metal he would pass, as he was not prepared to argue that point, and he would, deal liberally with the watering question. iDust they would have whether the streets were asphalted or not, as it would blow in from the streets that were not so treated. At the very outside he could not calculate on saving more than £250 on this item. There waß a difference of opinion respecting the. charge on carting metal/ but if it were thrown down and not stacked | and measured there would be no check on the amount supplied. Therefore taking the two statements, the Mayor Bhowed a surplus o! £383, whereas his (Councillor Gray'e) estimate showed a deficiency of £2090. The scheme was ill-xjonsidered and hasty, and was not founded on any reliable information. The Mayor should have followed the usual course of bringing it forward in the Council, when the Councillors could have considered the de^aile before placing ie before . the ratepayers. The people would have then reßted content that there were no miaatatements in it, as the Council would have known all about it. As it waß, it had been kept dark, and the whole brought forward. The public had been asked to vote upon it and pledge themselves to carry it out at once. It was little wonder that the audience had held back when they were asked to vote. When it came to a matter of hard £ b. d. people naturally took time to look into j the proposal. The Mayor secended the motion for adjournment pro formd. to enable him to answer Councillor Gray. Ha said that Councillor Gray had made a much fairer attack than The Press had made, but had not assailed his figures in one iota. He had received the acknowledgments of many business men in the city, who had pronounced, his scheme a very good one, and he had been congratulated for bringing it forward. Councillor Gray had admitted that a . saving of £450 a-year would be effected by doing away with the overdraft, and that they had paid £448 183 in bank interest last year. The overdraft on the general account that evening had been shown to be £5523, besides which there was tbe Cemetery account, which was overdrawn some £1300 to £1500 j therefore his statement regarding an annual saving j S of over £400 in. this respect was unassailed. , i Councillor. Appleby, desired the Mayor I ; to confine himself to facts... What he I objected to was that tbe Mayor should wilfully misrepresent the state of the ' Council's funds by speaking of the overdraft, when the balance of the accounts ; showed that they were not so much inj debted as he represented. It had been ' shown .that there were debts owing to the Council amounting to over £2000, which ■ reduced their indebtedness by that amount. • By calling it an overdraft the Mayor was ! throwing dust in the eyes of the public, ' and wilfully misrepresenting the facts of i th 6 case. I The Mayor said he knew they had money . owing to them, but if a business man was . overdrawn at the bank, he owed that ■ amount even if he had other moneys due ! to him. It was the same with the Council. It owed the bank £6500, and there was no . denying it. Councillor Appleby contended that the ; Mayor was making a wilful mistake. He ' knew full well that the actual indebtedness i waa only £3000 not £5000. j The Mayor interrupted, and as Council- ! lor Appleby remained standing, the Mayor : called him to order, and threatened that 1 he should have to carry out the Standing Orders. • • [ Councillor Appleby said that he did not • come to the Council to witness or assist in ;' a scene. He came there to do what he could for the city, bnt the Mayor, ever eince his advent to the Council Chamber, had persisted in making incorrect statements, whioh he (Councillor Appleby) felt bound to refute. There were men Bitting at that table who had been in the , Council and knew tbe work of the Council '■■ thoroughly, and he asked the Mayer if he thought that he or any other man ! could so master municipal affairs in threu ■ months as ta be able to correct all those older Councillors, and bring down a scheme of municipal reform as if he had the whole affair at his finger ends. He would be ' wiser if he paid a little more deference to the opinions of his Council. • The Mayor said he should adhere to the rules o£ debate,' and would not allow Councillors to interupt him or any other Councillor. He had not interfered with Councillor Gray when he was speaking, and now that he was replying, he expected the same courtesy extended to him that he had extended to Councillor Gray. I Councillor Appleby said that all he wanted was that no wilful misstatements should be made, and that the business of the Council should be faithfully done. i The. Mayor would still hold that the bank overdraft was the amount of the Council's, indebtedness on the general account. They had paid £143 18s thia year, and next year they would pay that off if they procured the money, while a sinking fund would be provided at 1 per cent. The overdraft had varied from £5000 to £4000 siDce he took office. It had been reduced by the rates to £4000, and had since risen to £5000. j Councillor Flesher asked the Mayor ! what it was at this time last year. That ! was tbe question to settle. Tho Mayor replied that he could not say, but, on referring to the records, said j that it had been pub down at £5000. The Richmond bridge would, he continued, cost more than the Colombo street bridge, because of tbe bend in the river. He considered £1500 sufficient for a good, substantial bridge at Colombo street, because it wa3 easy to cross the river at that point, i With regard to the streets, it was no argument that because the Christchurch streets were better than those in other cities that they did not have a large amount of dust which required to be done away with. The clock tower could be utilised as waa a similar structure in Wellington. The city of Glasgow was now taking up the wooden blocks, which had been put down at a cost of 12$ a yard, and asphalt was being laid in its place. He had obtained reports on the subject from the best engineers in various places, and was fully informed of the cost. He would guarantee the feasibility of the scheme for asphalting, and that the work could be done for tbe money, as he knew of a man who was prepared to t ike a contract at the price stated. They proposed to cart away the metal from the streets in cart 3 with iron bars on the bottom, so that by the time the carts arrived at the South belt there would not be much grit left in. the shingle. (Laughter.) It was only a hypothetical assumption that the work crold not be done for the money. Even if it cost 2s 6d a yard to do the work they would be able to do four miles instead of five, and another man had offered to do it at that price. In Newcastle the Engineer top-dressed the central streets every second year and the by-streets every fifth year, whereas he had calculated upon top-dressing their streets every year. Some people were in

doubt whether there would not be a need for some watering. This he had thought of. The streets would, be swept early in the morning with patent blushing machines, and this expense would be part of what was saved out of the scheme ;'that was to say ; that the labour of keeping the edges of the streets clean would be Bayed. Therefore, the streets being swept would not require watering heavily. He had inclnded the cost of surveys in the various items as an architect always did, and he maintained that the cost of the works was' within the estimate, which was substantially r correct. If the estimates were placed before six commercial men for approval, they would be proved so. If they had not been correct, he should not have risked placing them before the ratepayers. ' Councillor Swarm wished to know whether the Mayor had overlooked the fact that the £1000 paid for stone was all for the winter's supply. The Mayor said it had been used for the streets. He had seen .it on several of them. In reply to a" question, the City Surveyor said they bad used about 200 yards on Park terrace. Whatever had been used besides this wa3 from the., past year's supply. Councillor Swarm asked what the Mayor had put down for picking up the. streets and carting away the. metal. The Mayor eaid that the whole thing would be done at tho cost set down, Is 9d per yard (laughter), not cubic yard, but about Bix yards of the street to the oubic yard. Councillor Swarm wished to know if the Mayor could get the picking alone done for 1b 6d per yard, leaving out carting the metal, the tar and everything, else. The Mayor said it could all be done for the mopey stated... .. ' . Councillor" J. T, Smith here moved— "That the Coancil proceed to the next business/* He maintained that there was nothing before the Council, but they had been dragged into ah irregular discussion. If the Mayor's scheme deserved fair consideration it should be submitted* to the Council with the reports of experts attached. They should not accept his own dicta, Councillor Gray claimed a right to reply to the Mayor's remarks. He had come down in his figures, as already he had reduced his asphalting estimate from five miles and a half to four miles of streets, and he (Councillor Gray) was more inclined to the belief that two miles would be the outside that could be done for the money. Some words were then exchanged between Councillors Flesher, Widdowson and Swarm and the Mayor, relative to the Mayor ? s reference in his statement at the public to "the three Richmond lawyers, captained by Councillor Gray." Councillor Widdowson asked if the Mayor had received a letter from the President of the Municipal Association. The Mayor said he had received it. It waSwa summons to attend a meeting, of which he received many, and which he put into the drawer in his room. He always sent correspondence down to the office as soon as he had done with it. Councillor Widdowson moved the adjournment of tbe Council. He wished to have an answer from the Mayor as to what was done with the Council's correspondence, some of which had not been handed to the Works Committee till after three weeks had elapsed. The Mayor denied that any correspondence had been withheld by him. Councillor Widdowson wished to know if the Town Clerk's statement was correct or not : that a letter in reference to the trees in the Government grounds had- been detained by the Mayor. ' ■■ The Mayor replied that the statement was incorrect. . ;. .. Councillor Widdowson said he regretted to hear such a statement made; as it was not a correct one. The Mayor had said he was incompetent and useless, and had spoken of the necessity of his being relegated to a dismal obscuiity. He very much regretted' that any of his colleagues had taken notice of such, paltry remarks, as they were beneath notice. ... The proceedings here ended by the motion for adjournment being withdrawn.