COUNTY COUNCILS.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14978, 21 May 1914, Page 5

COUNTY COUNCILS.

ELLESMERE.

A special meeting of the Ellesmera County Council was held at Leeston on Monday to consider the annual statement of accounts and estimates of receipts and expenditure for the current year. Tho members present were :— Crs. J. Storrv (chairman), J. C. Free, J. Cunningham, T. A. Stephens, P. J. Lemon, and J. Lochhead. The balancesheet showed that tho credit balance at April Ist, 1913, was £1107 3s and the credit on March 31st, 1914, £1338 15s 6d, the surplus on the year's working being £251 12s 4d. The prin-. cipal items on the receipts side were:— General rates, 1913-14, £4077 14s 10d (Leeston riding £1570 4s Id, Irwell £1371 Is Bd, Southbridge £1130 9s Id); subsidy, £82 16s 9d; hotel licenses, £80 ; dog registration fees, £78 2s 6d; rente of reserves, £93 13a; rente of hut sites at the mouth of the Rakaia, £35. The chief items on the expenditure side were:—Wages, £441 5s Gd; teams and cartage, £155 9s; tools and materials, £189 11s; roads' and bridges' maintenance, £783 12s 3d; drains, £204 5s sd; salaries, £310 13s 4d: Hospital and Charitable Aid levy, £Ml 3 16s od; destruction of injurious birds. £194 17s IOd; upkeep of Rakaia bridge, £100. A statement of accounts in connexion with the Leeston fire preventionspecial rating area showed that the revenue amounted to £103 15s 10d, while the amount expended on firo plant and water supply was £139 IGs 3d. The Council decided to strike a fire rate of Jd in the £ for the current year. The estimates for the year were also coasidered. Provision, was made for an expenditure of £6665 19s Id, and the estimates were adopted. It was decided to strike a general rate of Jd in the £ in the Irwell and Leeston ridings, and £d in the Southbridge riding. A petition from the Leeston Volunteer Fire Brigade, asking for a better fire fighting plant- and water supply, and a counter petition from 65 ratepayers of the fire area, asking for the dissolution of the special rating aroa. were considered. The Council decided that it could not see its way to dissolve the firo area until a balance of £36 0s sd, due to the general account, was paid, and it was also decided to inform tho Fire Brigade that the Council could not at present give effect to the requests mado in its petition in face of the counter petition received.