WAIROA HIGHWAY BOARD.

Patea Mail, Volume V, Issue 492, 18 February 1880, Page 2

WAIROA HIGHWAY BOARD.

(To the Editor of the Patea Mail.) Sir, —According to your report of thrncetin.tr of the Wairoa Highway Bo >r.i oiv the 7 th instant, it was proposal and seconded by two now members, anti carried n nan if. ton sly (wo are to suppose, cs there is nothing to the contrary;, That strangers he excluded from meetings of the Board.” Perhaps trios gentleman wan’d be kind ciioneh to inform the ratep '.yvrs of the district who they call strangers —whether it is the ratepayers, or those outside of the Wairoa Highway District. If the former, we are weil aware tiie members

of tho Board do not count them art strangers when they want their votes. They are friends then, and are welcome to a drive in some of their bougies; but perhaps when they are fleecing some of tl.cm of their rates to make roads for said buggies, they may then ho strangers. Seeing the unfair way that the rates have been spout (according to Foreman of iVork’s letter). I think that the ratepayer’s have alight to demand admittance to the Board's meetings, especially when there is not a full report of the meetings given in your columns. We, generally get who proposes and seconds a resolution, hut there is nothing about who is for and against, as a guide to ratepayers how their members vole on any question. More than onee,irhoii tenders were called for work hy said. Board, the lowest tender by a hmg way has not been accepted ; •and this too when the one tenderer was as good a man as the other. If tho ratepayers were to see who voted for and against this waste of money, it would have been a guide to them who to given their vote to at the late election.'' Thu Wairoa Board has mostly always saddled the ratepayers with the highest rate they could stick on, ami how much of that has been spent for the benefit of those paying the rates? According to Mr Milne, £6OO has been taken from Nos. I and 5 Wards for works on the Koiii Beads, or tu Nos. 8 and 4 Wards. Has that been spent tor the benefit of those paying tho rates? I am afraid not, nor for the benefit of any one else, as sorm* of 1 tic money in those Wards has been spent on work that men of experience would never have dreamt of spending it on. How is it that those Wards that required so much money for their roads did not raise a special rate, to make them, instead of robbing other wards, and leaving tin ii* roads impassable ? if they bought their land with bad roads to it semi; years ago, they gyt it cheap; so they ought to a [fled a little, extra fur roads. But, I am of opinion that in that direction they cuae from luc country called ;i grab ;di." They see no' tratiic but to their own door. Perhaps some of the early set tiers might he able to tail us how much traffic was on the main lint! of road between Wanc-ond m-d Hawera before it Was made fit for it. it is a huue ton’s-! to drive so tell the ratepayers that there is no traffic on such and such a road, when such road is imnassable.—l urn, &c., RATE payer.