The Waikato Times. FRIDAY, JUNE 25, 1937. GARDEN PLACE HILL.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20230, 25 June 1937, Page 6

The Waikato Times. FRIDAY, JUNE 25, 1937. GARDEN PLACE HILL.

The Borough Council has been advised that there are no legal difficulties to prevent another poll being taken regarding the removal of Garden Place Hill, and the matter is now before a committee of the Council. But there are some aspects that should be discussed fully before any decision is reached because they would directly, and very materially, affect the position. The proposal now favoured by a majority on the Council is that there should be a special rating area formed, with the major liability for rates in connection with the work limited to that area. The advocates have outlined the proposed boundaries. That plan, it has been suggested, would overcome the opposition to the whole scheme shown by the adverse majority at the recent poll. Setting aside for the time being the assumption that the opposition was largely, if not entirely, based on financial grounds, there is the question of the permanence of the special rating area system. There is a strong impression in some quarters that the present Government is opposed to special rating areas, and it has certainly advocated the abolition of ridings in some local bodies and of separate riding accounts. The matter was raised by the chairman of the Counties’ Association when the Minister of Internal Affairs attended a conference in South Canterbury recently. Mr Talbot asked “if special rating areas would be adopted to meet payments on loans,” and Mr Parry’s reply was far from definite. He said that the Bill would be flexible, but that if he started to work out such matters he would get nowhere. Some local bodies in the consolidation -of their loans, altered special rating areas, and it would be for the Borough Council to ascertain if there were any possibility of that process continuing and affecting the special rating area it is proposed to create here. Even the strongest advocates of the plan would admit that it would be unjust if the responsibility undertaken by a limited area were transferred by later legislation to the shoulders of the general ratepayers. This, of course, is an approach solely along the financial route. There may have been, as the Mayor stated, many things that diverted attention from the main issue at the recent poll, but that does not affect the fact that the poll already taken was the poll the Council had in mind when the special legislation was promoted. That being so it is for those who now want a second poll, a special rating area, and the authorisation by the whole of the ratepayers for expenditure on the disposal of the spoil, to explain why the original intention of the Act should be extended for these purposes. It cannot be said that they were ever contemplated when the measure was under discussion. The second plan can be discussed in detail when the occasion arises, but those who are putting it forward should be in a position to assure the ratepayers that the liability that would rest on a special rating area will not subsequently be extended to cover the whole borough, and that, of course, would require a ministerial statement of a convincing nature.