THE LATE "PRIVATE" MEETING.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 470, 25 January 1881, Page 2

THE LATE "PRIVATE" MEETING.

To the Editor.

Sir, —My attention has been drawn to an article in your issue of last Tuesday, commenting on what ycu are pleasod to term a " private " meeting of the < kain's Road Board on Saturday, the. loth inst. I am at a loss to understand how you 7 eirned that the meeting was private, as the notices convening the meeting three days previous mentioned that the said meeting was for the purpose of electing a chairman, and other business ;

and I deny that any one of the rate-

payers were ordered out when the business proper of the Board was carried out

but on the contrary any of them who chose to attend were treated with the utmost respect.

Your informant was correct in saying that Mr Moore was re-elected Chairman, and you need not be alarmed about laying yourself open to any penalty when you say so, as the ratepayers are very well pleased with Mr Moore's appointment, knowing that they have got an honest, upright gentleman as their Chairman, and one who will not allow the Board's funds to be squandered, as was the case not so long ago.

Tn regard to your informant's second •llotration regarding ;i discussion about

thr.'Clerk's stains with the Board, this is simply an untruth ; but Mr Barker did mention that the Clerk's appoint-

ment should have been allowed to stand over imfi! he (Mr Barker) was elected, but .-it the time of the. Clerk's re-appoint-ment the members of the Board were not aware that Mr Barker would be elected at all ; and moreover the Board

have not, as you say, enveloped that affair in anything like mystery, as I find a very full report o f our November meeting , (containing all particulars of that appointment) in the Mail of tho 2nd of December last.

Your third and last misstatement refers to a supposed private contract for some private road, and let to some private individual. Now I beg to inform your informant that the same road, is a main road, and the most dangerous road on the Peninsula, and which your informant, for all the time he has been on the Board, has never yet seen.

The contract was let to Mr 1 hacker some time ago, as his was the lowest tender, and Mr Ware's the next lowest ; but as Mr Thacker was elected a member of Board at the last election—he had never commenced the work ; and as it was urgently needed, he asked the Board to transfer the contract to Mr Ware, and he (Mr Ware), agreeing to do so, it was at once complied with.

As Mr John E. Thacker was present at the meeting, I refer to him as to the truth or otherwise of the foregoing statement, and I would remind your informant that if he does live in a glass house there are plenty of stones to crack it and glass houses, like reputations, are not so hard to crack. I am, etc.,

A Member of tub Board Okain's Bay, Jan. 22, 1881.