LIVELY DISCUSSION.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 941, 11 December 1933, Page 5

LIVELY DISCUSSION.

Motion for Removal of Chairman. ' KAIKOURA COUNTY. A lively discussion took place at a meeting of the Kaikoura County Council, when Mr E. H. Eccles moved “That a firm of legal practitioners be consulted with a view to removing the present chairman (Mr F. Monk) from the chairmanship, and the County Council.” Mr Eccles in speaking to the motion said after the election county em ployees were not treated fairly and were dismissed. In April last work on the Claverley Road was stopped by Mr Monk. This was a wrong use of official position. All correspondence had not in the past come before the council. Regarding the chairman’s action in suspending the speaker at the last meeting of the council, the chairman had not a vestige of right in such extreme action. Mr Eccles contended that the last meeting was illegal. Mr J. Boyd, in seconding the motion pro forma, said he thought the chairman did wrong in sending for the police. The chairman: Why did Mr Eccles use such terms as “doing the dirty work of the chairman”? Mr Humm: I asked you to put the question of Mr Eccles’s suspension to the meeting and you refused. It is up to you to justify your action, and is it right to have the police sitting here and watching over the council business? Whv, no councillor is safe! The chairman said the trouble was that he and Mr Eccles had never blended. The motion was possibly unique in county history and had 1 e chosen he could have ruled it out of order. He deeply resented the implication that he had interfered with the engineer or the correspondence and also any reflection that might be made against the staff. Mr Boyd: All we seek is 'eace. You and Mr Eccles have been chipping at one another for eighteen months. Get it over and be finished with it. The motion was defeated.