A QUESTION OF CLERKS.

Shannon News, 15 October 1926, Page 4

A QUESTION OF CLERKS.

DRAINAGE BOARD MATTERS- , COUNTY CHAIRMAN REPELS INUNENDOES. ■! Several matters affecting the staff were brought up at, Saturday's/meeting of the Horowhenua County Council and occupied a great deal of time. Cr. McLeovey jsaid he had a question to ask which he asked with a lot of reluctance as he had a great deal of respeet for the man concerned. Did the County Clerk act as secretary for any other bodies? The Chairman answered the question in the affirmative. Cr. McLeavey said they were told that their clerk was over-worked and that it was necessary for them to employ another clerk to assist him. The speaker thought the clerk should be employed entirely under the Council. He had asked all the old councillors whether they knew about it and they could give him no information. The chairman said that, in the first place no blame, if there was blame of any sort, could be attached to the clerk. Anybody who had been connected with the Council would know the history of the trouble they had had over the Hokio drainage. The speaker had been on more deputations to Ministers than he could remember on the subject of the Lake. When the Drainage Board came to be formed the Council assisted as much as they possibly could to get the drainage district constituted and the Department of Internal Affairs requested the County Clerk to conduct the first election. He carried that out and the speaker was then approached by the chairman of the Hokio Drainage Board with the request that the Clerk be allowed to act as their Clerk. The speaker had agreed on condition that their clerk was not overloaded. In any case they had no control of his time outside the office hours of the County. Whether he was the Drainage Board's Clerk duly appointed or just assisted them, the drainage' district comprised a section of their own ratepayers, and its formation relieved the County of. a certain amount of work, and if anyone else was appointed, he would have to come to the County Clerk for information and a considerable amount of his time would be taken up in giving that information. The formation of the drainage district had relieved the Council of a great amount of anxiety and work. Since then the chairman of the ncwly-fornmd Kuku Drainage Board had approached the speaker in the same manner but he felt that the County Clerk should not act as there was a limit which he should not exceed ,

Cr. McLeavey: I think he should be our clerk entirely.

The chairman said the clerk had not acted for any pecuniary gain but he Aad done it to assist the movement just .is he had done at Kuku. In this particular instance the Department of Internal Affairs had asked the Clerk to act as returning officer, because they

[were very glad to deal with a man who knew his job. The chairman said he ' could go further with his explanation. In regard to the Buckley Drainage Board, the clerk had been called upon to give information to both sides and had had to come back to the County office night after night. Personally, the chairman could not see that any 1 wrong had been done. He understood that the Hokio Drainage Board had made a small payment for the work and that the services rendered to the Board had been, very valuable. Whether the County Clerk had been their clerk or not he would have rendered that service. If there was any blame the chairman was willing to shoulder it, but he thought the explanation he had given showed that there was ample justification for what had been done. Cr.' Catley said it was something of a shock when he heard about it. When he was appointed secretary it carried a remuneration. The Chairman: The work has notbeen done in the daytime. Cr. Catley said it would be putting an additional strain on the clerk. He thought the chairman was to blame a little bit. . ■ '" The Chairman: Possibly I have erred in not taking you into my confidence, but not intentionally. Cr Catley said that when an, abuse like this existed it was better they should know about it. The Chairman: I had not the slightest idea that the whole Council do not know. If it is the feeling of the Council that I have deliberately shielded this all I can say is that you should know me better. Or. Catley indicated that that was not the feeling. The Chairman: If you saw the result to-day of the drainage work you would be proud to bf associated with it. Cr. Ryder expressed pleasure at the chairman's explanation which was satisfactory. He had not known of the circumstances and agreed with the chairman's view that the Clerk should not take on further work. The chairman said the work their clerk had done for the Drainage Board had been of mutual lenefit. The request for his services had come from the chairman of the Board not from Mr Hudson and if he had not felt that it would be of mutual benefit he would not have agreed. He was certain the wotk of the County had not suffered. '•The point I take exception to" cout tinned the chairman, "is not the straightout talk from Cr McLeavey, but the jnunendoes and threats that have been made outside the Council so far as my position is concerned.' A man that will go out and make threats of that kind against auother who is

striving to do good so far as a local body of which he is a member is concerned —such a man is beneath notice and beneath contempt. I say that because I know those threats have been made. Or. McLeavey has been straightforward and nobody can take any exception to his bringing up the matter as he has done."

-Cr McLeavey: Thank you, Mr Chairman'. The Chairman then asked the County Clerk to make a statement particularly in regard to the need for assistance ir. the office. *

Keplying to the statements made the clerk ?,aid a good deal of them were the result of a misunderstanding. In the first place with respect to his asking for assistance in the office some tiire ago it was not, in any way, brought up by the fact cf his being associated with the Hokio Drainage Board The work of the Council had considerably grown beyond what could reasonably be expected of any clerk. Apart from any other consideration he 'had carried on with practically \ the same staff as that of years gone by, and with all the new developments he,, still Avas asked to carry on. There were tilings concerning the office organisation thaH; could not easily be explained there, but he thought the Council should rely upon his personal judgment in the matter. They were, perhaps, a little unfortunate in not knowing the inner workings of the office/ but he would never have approached the Council for any extra assistance had he not conscientiously thought that extra assistance was necessary and of benefit to the Council. He still considered it necessary and, though not immediately, they would see the results achieved by the action taken. It had always been his endeavour to help ratepayers in any way possible, and he had not studied the regular 9 a.m 1 . to 5 p.m. hours. He had worked many nights on Council work, quite apart from drainage board work. The latter was, perhaps, better understood by a person in the position he was than by anyone else in the locality. He had not sought the position, but had been approached by members of tlie Board, and he had asked them to feel perfectly free to ask anyone else if they saw fit, and would only act if the permission of the chairman of the Council was obtained. In this instance the Drainage Board chairman had approached the chairman of the Council, whose consent was given. The Avork was done in his own time and surely, he could do that one night of the week when he often gave'two to the Council's work? If the Drainage Board decided to remunerate him, surely that, was a matter for them to decide. With respect to the Kuku Board ho had told them precisely the same thing as they had been pressing him to do the work. The Avork done for the Hokio Drainage had been done in. 90 per cent, of his oavu time and 10 per cent, of the Council's, and in any c,ase he would have had to have done ■the lattd", as a matter of courtesy toward another local body. The thing underlying the Avhcle position AA'as that lie had studied the interests of tie Council all the time ar.d Avas looking after their interests primarily. One result had been that he had got a clear insight into some of the legal difficulties the County had to work under in

regard to drainage. It was not a question of L.s.d., and if it was the Council's desire that he should not do this work, well, he would not do it, and that A\-as all there Avas about it. In regard to the Buclaey Drainage District he had put in a lot of time both for the people AA'ho wanted it and the people A\iio did not. and he had done/it out of his private time. He thought that under rhe circumstances he deserved a little consideration and councillors must excuse him if he spoke feelingly. At least he might have been asked beforehand about it and in that case ho thought the matter would have been put in a slightly different way. The Council then passed to the nextbusiness.