MATAMATA COUNTY OFFICES.

Waikato Times, Volume 96, Issue 15359, 6 October 1923, Page 6

MATAMATA COUNTY OFFICES.

(To the Editor.) Sir.—ln the interests of the ratepayers of the Matamata County, and no other interests should be studied by the councillors, the office of the county clerk should undoubtedly be under the same roof as that which shelters the county engineer. These two important county officials are supplementary and complementary in their daily \f - ork. Interdependence and co-operation arc necessary on their part in order that economic as well as efficient county work may be carried on. The county clerk should at all times know the details of the expenditure of every riding as the work is progressing, sounding a note of warning to his co-worker and to the councillors whenever necessary. How can Intimate knowledge of each other’s work exist with a distance of, say, 25 miles separating the engineer's office from that of the clerk? Where else in New Zealand does a similar state of affairs exist? Not only is there the element of distance between the offices, but the county clerk’s office is outside of 'the county territory altogether. In Auckland city some of the suburban local bodies have their county offices, but the engineer and county clerk arc in the same or adjoining rooms. Our ratepayers who wish to inspect county documents have to journey to Cambridge or go without their wish being gratified. Excepting those councillors representing Maungtautari and Karapiro ridings, who go to Cambridge to do their general business all councillors arc no better off. Not copies and extracts, but the originals arc what arc required for inspection. These originals should never leave the county office. :

At present a resolution exists that the county clerk should be at least one day (Thursday) a week in Tirau. From the 22nd June to the 13th July, dates of Council, meetings held this year, owing to the bad roads and to the fact that the return journey between Cambridge i and Tirau '. is not easily accomplished/ in . one day, the county cleric was never one day in the Matamala County territory. . . The office should be open from 9 a.m. till 5 p.m. each day and the records open to ratepayer and councillor alike at a point in the county somewhere central. What place can out-

vie Tirau for this purpose. since, already there are the County Chamber, Hie engineer’s residence, the county yard, large and well placed near the railway station, Hie county workshop, and lastly, live concrete houses holding county employees, including the county overseer. Does it need any argument to prove that the county clerk’s office should be added to the list completing the whole? Witli the county office in a township with no community of interest with the Matamata County docs it make for the production in the mind of the county clerk of a Matamata County outlook? His home, his pleasures, his whole life outside an occasional trip to Tirau must be tinged or influenced by his surroundings. No matter who be the clerk the same must be true. His desire must be to beautify the already most beautiful country township in the Waikato. The Matamata County wants officials whose very soul is wrapped up in its advancement and improvement. We need then, their lives centred in Matamata by constant existence there.

Let me remind my fellow councillors that a councillor derives his power and authority from tiie ratepayers and their interests only should be their study. The county needs highly efficient, well paid, happy officials, happy in their work and with their outlook coloured by their daily surroundings, to be wholly a Matamata

County view’. Their duties are to carry out the ratepayers’ wishes as promulgated by the councillors. No other motives should guide the councillors, but what is best for the ratepayers of the county at large. Can anyone say the Matamata County is studying the interests of the ratepayers when, as stated at the counciL table last meeting, mainly for sentimental reasons the shirting of the clerk’s office to Tirau was turned down for the tenth lime! Nothing that the councillors for Maungatautari and Karapiro say should carry weight with other councillors, for as these two ridings are on the western side of the Waikato River and both signified through their ratepayers their desire to be in the territory surrounding Cambridge Borough as a separate entity, it is quite obvious the county office in Cambridge suits those ridings and equally obvious only to them. The Waikato River is the natural boundary. In Hamilton the Borough Council are going to the expense of erecting borough offices on a new site in Hamilton because of the waste of time that has occurred through the engineer’s office being on one side of the road and that of the clerk directly opposite on the other side. Fancy what would be the position regarding wasted time and expense if 25 miles separated the offices as is the case in the Matamata County.

The councillors should throw on one side all else and deal with the case from a business view only. If all other local bodies have their engineers and clerks under one roof, wc are the only ones right—and all the others w’rong. Is it not probable that the others are right and wc are wrong in having our officials separated by any distance, much less 25 miles! The outlay is insignificant to put both offices under one roof. The present chamber with a G foot partition walling off a part is quite large enough for botlx engineer and clerk. The combined offices of Raglan County occupy less space. Plenty of room would still be left for the council to meet. No better lime than in the near future could the offices be united as now economy is urgently needed in public expenditure and every pound of ratepayers’ money should be made to go as far as possible, and, further, no part of New Zealand is showing more marked indications of huge steps in development than the Matamata County. I trust that the ratepayers of the county as a whole will do all that they can to insist that this very necessary and urgent reform is carried out and let their respective councillors know in unmistakable words their determination that aught that makes for economy and facilitates administration shall be carried into effect. —I am etc., E. J. DARBY, County Councillor, Putaruru Riding, Matamata County Council.