Manchester Road Board

Feilding Star, Volume X, Issue 81, 12 January 1889, Page 3

Manchester Road Board

A special meeting of the above was held «n Thursday afternoon for the purpose of dealing with tenders for works as per advertisement. Present —Messrs C- Bull <Chairman), Lethbridge, Pryee - Maearthur, and Wheeler.

The Chairman explained the object o: *he meeting.

Mr Macarthur said a deputation was about to wait on the Board.

The Chairman said that it was a special meeting for a special purpose, and he thought the deputation ought not to be received.

Mr Jones held with the Chairman, and Mr Lethbridge wae against the Chairman's ruling. Mr Macarther said there was nothing in the Act to forbid a deputation being received.

After some further discussion it was decided to receive the deputation. A deputation of twelve ratepayers of No. 5 ward waited on the Board with a petition signed by sixty ratepayers of the «aid ward, praying the Board to give •effect to their former petition, reconsider the resolution passed at their last meeting re the expenditure of £300 on Bunny-thorpe-Stoney Creek and BunnythorpeFeilding roads alone, and to have other roads (mentioned in petition) made at the same time.

Mr Fletcher spoke to the petition, and explained that the settlers were fully prepaited to have the works carried out.

Mr Macarthur upheld the petition, giving as hie opinion that the settlers along the Bunnythorpe-Feilding and Bunny-thorpe-Stoney roads would naturally be indifferent about a vote for all the roads being done after their own had been made. He advocated all the roads being done out •of a loan at the same time, and he moved that the petition be received. Speaking further on the subject he reminded the Board, before accepting any tenders, of the financial position of No. 5 ward, it being over £100 in debt, and unade to meet the liability which would be incurred by the said £'300 being spent •on said roads. He contended for giving the ward another chance of getting a loan for the whole of the works, and said there would be no hope of getting a loan if the JJ3OO was spent on said road. He warned the Board that if they went in for spending this i£3oo on said road, which was out •of their district, he should at once call the attention of the Auditor-General to the matter as illegal, and then the members voting for the expenditure would be personally liable to refund the money out of their own pockets. Mr Bull twitted Mr Macarthur with personal feelings of spite in the matter, a charge which the latter emphatically repudiated.

Mr Wratt explained that the settlers had no objection to the roads in question being done, but they wanted all the roads to be made at the same time.

Several other members of the deputation spoke in support of the petition. Mr Lethbridge proposed, That a loan for all the works be gone in for, so as to .give No. 5 ward another chance. •After a good deal of desultory discussion between the deputation and the Board,

Mr Lethbridge proposed, and Mr G. Wheeler seconded, That the tenders be held over, and that the Chairman t ike the necessary steps to raise a loan to make the whole of the unmade roads in No. 5 ward.—Carried.

This concluded the business,