ROAD BOARD ELECTIONS.

Globe, Volume VII, Issue 793, 6 January 1877, Page 3

ROAD BOARD ELECTIONS.

HEATHCOTE. The polling for the election of members to fill the vacancies caused by the retirement of Messrs Laugdown, Kerr, and Clephane took place yesterday at the Board Office, Ferry road. From about noon until the hour of closing the excitement was keen, but the arrangements in the Board office for recording votes were miserable in the extreme. In the first place there was not sufficient clerical assistance to the Returning Officer, and the room in which the votes were taken could only contain a tithe of those voters who congregated around the premises as 4 o’clock approached. Before that hour arrived the room adjoining that occupied by Mr Lee was filled, and at 4 o’clock that gentleman gave instructions to have the outer doors locked. This was done. But when the hour for closing the poll arrived even those who had been locked in the other room, were not allowed to vote, and it ‘is said that the fifteen persons so excluded represented at least one hundred votes. Very general dissatisfaction was expressed at the course adopted, and, judging from the remarks made, the validity of the official result may be contested.

Shortly after half-past four o’clock, Mr G. L. Lee, returning officer, came to the door and declared the result to be as follows : Mr P. Kerr 218 Mr F. Jones ■ 208 Mr W. Langdown ... ... 208 Mr W. Hawker 205 Mr R. Clephane 182 Mr F. Innes 90

He had therefore to declare Messrs Kerr, Jones, and Langdown duly elected to serve as members of the Heathcote Road Board for the ensuing year. [Cheers.] Mr Kerr, who was loudly called for, mounted a barrow, and said he was not prepared to find himself in the advanced position on the poll he held, but he desired to say that a few of his friends had come down from town to assist him, but had been unable to vote. He desired to thank those friends and all who had voted for him, and he could not find language sufficiently to thank them as he would wish. He believed he was the oldest man among them, but he would endeavor as much as possible to do what the ratepayers expected from him. [Applause. ] After referring to the accounts and to some remarks made at the nomination about the late clerk to the Board, Mr Kerr said that various charges had been made against the Board, but he did not think blame could be attached to them, considering |the work that had been done during the past year, and the amount of money expended in the district. Last year the Board had a debit against them of over £9OO, and now they had about £1450 to their credit, (Cheers.j He again begged to thank them very much for placing an old man like him at the head of the poll, Mr Jones desired to thank his friends for placing him in the position he occupied. It bad been shown that the office of member was not a sinecure, nor did he look upon it as such. The Heathcote district was not only a large, but also an important one, and he should make it his duty to attend to the interests of the whole of it—[applause] and he would consider that if anything happened seriously affecting the interests of the ratepayers during the next twelve months, it would be the fault of the Board, [Hear, hear.| He did not stand there to represent any particular section of the district— Waltham, Sumner, nor any other portion—but to attend to the affairs pertaining to the whole, and he would be glad if any of the ratepayers would make it their business to bring any local matters which might come immediately under their cognizance, before the Board, and not wait until a torrent of complaints had accumulated. He hoped that he and his colleagues would have given satisfaction at the end of their term, and in the absence of Mr Langdown, he begged also to thank them on behalf of that gentleman. [Applause,] After the other candidates had addressed the meeting, a vote of thanks, proposed by Mr Kerr, and seconded by Mr Jones, was passed to the Returning Officer.