TOWN HALL VERSUS STREET FORMATION.

Evening Star, Issue 4129, 22 May 1876, Page 3

TOWN HALL VERSUS STREET FORMATION.

To the Editor. Sir,-— Permit me through, your paper to suggest the desirability of at once asking the Mayor to convene a meeting of the ratepayers to consider the necessity of erecting a Town Hall at present, and at such an enormous cost (viz., L 30,000), as is proposed. Surely, sir, the ratepayers will never quietly aßow such a sum, as is proposed to be spout, to be inttpred away on such a paltry thing which we have done so long without, aud when we have the prospect of heavy taxation beyond the City rates The fonnation of many streets and footpaths throughout the City would be a legitimate way Of spending any spare money the Council may have at its command. I could Sir, enumerate very many streets which are in a disgraceful state ; many most dangerous places within the City needing protection • and also many streets most imperfectly, if at all, lighted, but it seems such requirements are altogether beneath the notice of our civic “gabies, nothing less than a L 20,000 or L 30.000 job being worthy of their attention. 1 believe the ratepayers, as a whole, willcouacmnsiieh a gigantic scheme as is proposed, and therefore they should be consulted ere it is too late. Let the Council take warning from the action taken in the Princes street widening case, and save theix own character

and dignity. I think the citizens .hare a right to be consulted before being involved in any such large expenditure of their money, and trust his Worship the Mayor will not wait for a requisition, but will of his own accord convene a public meeting before further action is taken in so important a matter. Sir, I was much pleased with your article on the Town Hall and tramways the other evening, and hope that, if the latter be gone on with, the Council itself will make them, and secure the profit for the benefit of the City, for I believe it would be a paying affair from the first.—l am, &c., Caution. Dunedin, May 20.