MOUTOA DRAINAGE BOARD.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 1020, 22 July 1911, Page 3

MOUTOA DRAINAGE BOARD.

MONTHLY MEETING. TV nHinnrv monthly meeting ui t..e Aioiuoa C. ; Board was held in the Board’s office last night. Present: Messrs B. G. Gower (chairman), O. R. Robinson, H. G. Hammond, and W. S. Carter. An apology for absence was received from Mr F. S. Easton. clerk's report. The Clerk reported the amount to credit of loan account at ,£852 5s Bd, and that No. 3 account and the general account were at debit spectively. The Valuation roll is to hand, and the rate roll completed ready for striking rates. The rateable value for general rates is ,£137,302, and for special rates ,£119,358. The amount required for general account to clear the cost of embankments as arranged, and lor general purposes, is as follows: Cost of embankments, ,£415, less grant by Manawatu County Council ,£45, leaving ,£370, lor general purposes £l2O is required, making a total ot £490. A rate of seveneighths of a penny in the £ on 2 gives, sa y> -&5 00 - The annual interest on loan is £215 13s rod. The special rate levied of seven-sixteenths of a penny in the £ gives £217 ns 8d on the reduced value, and it will be necessary to collect that.

THIS STOP-BANKS, Mr Geo. Hickford, the Mauawatu County Council’s engineer, reported, under date June 22nd, that Mr J. V. Burr had completed the stop bank satisfactorily, and Messrs Smith Bros, had also made a first-class job of repairing the bank around their property ; he had also inspected the bank constructed by Mr Cooksley. He reported that the whole of the bank was in first-class order, and there should be no danger of floods breaking over. He suggested that the banks be sown with rye or cocksfoot. In dealing with the latter part of the report, the chairman said he thought the owners of the property should sow the banks as they would get the grazing, Mr Hammond said it was certainly the Board’s duty to see that the banks were sown, and he thought it would be best for the Board to do it, and then they would be sure of it. If it were left to the property owners they might neglect it and the banks get broken, and then all the ratepayers would have to bear their proportion of the loss. It was decided to leave the matter over for the present, as it was not yet time to sow.

TUB RATES,

The chairman moved that notice be given that the Board intends, at a special meeting to be held on Monday, August 7th, to make and levy a general rate of seven-eighths of a penny in the £, on all rateable properties in the Moutoa Drainage Board district, and to authorise the collection of the special rate ot seven-sixteenths of a penny in the £ made and levied ou August 27th, 1908, on all properties in the Moutoa Drainage Board Special Rating District.

The Chairman said that the general rate would be heavy on account of the construction of the stop-banks last year. At the time they were constructed it was agreed that the cost should be paid out of the general rate this year. Messrs Robinson and Hammond agreed that the cost was nothing compared with the benefit they had already got from the banks. Mr Hammond said that Moutoa had never previously suffered so little in time of flood as was the case with the recent flood. The Chairman: “I think we can congratulate ourselves that the work has been a great success.” THE COUNTV GRANT. The County Clerk wrote advising that at the last meeting of the Mauawatu County Council it was decided that the Board’s request for a grant towards the cost of constrncting stop banks be acceded to, and that be voted. The Chairman said that according to the newspaper report of the County Council meeting it was decided that the grant above referred to should be paid out of the funds of the Awahou Riding and Whirokino Sub-Division —Awahou £25 and Whirokino He considered this was a very unfair proposition. The banks were going to benefit two of the main roads of the County, and he considered the grant should, therefore, have been made out of the general funds of the County. It was not fair that a handful of ratepayers should have to pay for a work that was benefiting the County’s main roads.

Mr Carter said that at the time of the erection of the Shannon bridge the County Council had endeavoured to put the whole of its share of the cost on to the Awahou Riding and would have done so had it been legally able to doti. THE DREDGE. For some little time prior to work on the drain ceasing the returns from the dredge had not been as satisfactory as might have been expected, and Mr Carter asked the engineer, Mr Ward, who was in attendance, what he considered the reason was. Mr Ward said that undoubtedly the reason was that the dredge required overhauling. When he found that it was not working satisfactorily he had the work stopped and got the Railway Department to send up a fitter to