NORMANBY ROAD RATING AREA.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5078, 21 January 1927, Page 2

NORMANBY ROAD RATING AREA.

(To the Editor.} Sir,— I have no intenti m of being drawn into a newspaper controversy with Cr. de Castro, but in the interest o'f good local Government, and for the info-i mation of burgesses, I write to protest against, a charge of misfeasance being made against an officer cl the council by a councillor through the columns o'f your paper. The proper place for a councillor to debate the business o’f the council is at the -council table, and Cr. de. Castro could not be prevented from bringing forward any such matter, provided he did so in conformity with the established rules. The "undignified episode” was the result of Cr. de Castro’s persistent attempt to make such a charge without notice, of motion ; and the letter in your correspondence columns isi a further attempt to gain the point in a manner quite unfair to the officers o'f the administration, as they are unable to defend themselves by a newspaper controversy, particularly so before the matter has been considered by the council. The subject is one for debate by councillors at a council meeting, where it will come up at no distant date, and for this reason I cannot discuss it in this letter. Suffice 't to say that there is quite another side of the question of equity as presented by Cr. de Castro, and that the public will be in a better position to judge as to the whole question after it has been properly before the council. I cannot 'forbear, however, to siay that in his facts Cr. de Castro is not on safe ground, as they are open to question ; and the resolution which he quotes in inverted commas (and which therefore should be accurate in its wording) is distorted so asi to be something quite different from the record appearing in the minute, book. I regret exceedingly that a councilor has seen fit to bring into question the actions of a highly conscientious officer of the council, and to use it as a weapon for debate in the correspondence columns of ycur payer, before bringing the matter properly before the council, but 1 am confident that in due time the final judgment will be a complete vindica'on of the actions of the town clerk. W- MARSHALL, Mayor.