Legal Action Against Newmarket Mayor

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 428, 9 August 1928, Page 1

Legal Action Against Newmarket Mayor

COUNCILLORS’ ACTION SUPREME COURT APPROACHED After securing legal advice, seven members of the Newmarket Borough Council have taken steps in the Supreme Court for the issue of a writ of mandamus to compel the Mayor, Mr. S. Donaldson, to put a certain resolution to the council. The Mayor has now either to defend his action or concede the point and give councillors voice on the resolution. This unhappy state of affairs at Newmarket Is the outcome of a particularly heated dispute between two sections of the council over a suggested traffic route. The Mayor is opposed by seven of his nine councillors, whom he alleged were actuated by commercial motives in advocating a certain street extension, and he consistently refused to put their motions to the council, on the ground that they were unfair and out of order. The controversy developed recently when d newspaper, published on behalf of the newly-formed Ratepayers’ Association, took up the cause of the Mayor in opposition to the stand already adopted by the local news sheet. The statements in the new paper were such as to lead one councillor to move that they be investigated by the borough solicitor, but the Mayor refused to put this resolution to the council, and the council meeting finished in an uproar. The resolution about which the controversy now hinges is outlined here: “That the council views with some concern the misleading and improper statements which have been circulated throughout the district by a body

calling itself the Newmarket Progressive Association, in a paper called the ‘Newmarket Ratepayers’ Gazette,’ and, with a view to refuting the said improper statements, and of stopping any further issue thereof, a copy of the ‘Gazette’ be handed to the borough solicitor for his consideration, with a request that he advise what steps should be taken to this end.” The procedure is that a warrant to sue is signed by the seven councillors as an indication to their solicitors to proceed. The document is then filed at the Supreme Court and application for mandamus then proceeds. The signatories to the warrant are: G. E. Smerdon, H. Gregory, H. J. Cooper, J. Handley, A. R. Townsend, F. J. O’Meara and N. Kell away.