UNNECESSARY DELAYS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 647, 26 April 1929, Page 13

UNNECESSARY DELAYS

MR. BLQOBWORTH EXPLAINS CRITICISM OF COUNCIL That the City Council, under the present Mayor, Mr. G. Baildon, has shown a tendency to defer questions unnecessarily, was the subject explained by Mr. T. Bloodworth, Labour candidate for the Mayoralty, when addressing a large meeting at the Grey Lynn Library Hall on Wednesday evening. Mr. Bloodworth asserted that Mr. Baildon was charging him with inconsistency, stating that while criticising from the platform the Mayor’s tendency to defer questions, Mr. Bloodworth himself had wanted to defer two questions for consideration by the new council.

“The Mayor, however, did not tell his audience what those two questions were,” said Mr. Bloodworth. “One was the rearrangement of the duties of the various committees of the council. It is not likely that the new council will be content to be bound on that by a resolution passed at the last meeting of the old council.” The other question Mr. Bloodworth wanted deferred was the surrender of the lease of the fish market site back to the Harbour Board, on payment of £2,000 by the board to the council. “I was told that the opinion of neither the city valuer nor the city solicitor had been obtained,” said the candidate, “and X moved that consideration should be deferred in order that the city valuer might give his opinion as to the value of the lease and the goodwill. I did not think the council was doing the best it could in the transaction, and, in any case, since the council employs a valuer, it seems only a matter of ordinary business that he should be asked his opinion.” The delays of which he had accused the council were not such as those, said Mr. Bloodworth, but were delays in pushing on with urgent work of city development, such as traffic outlets. At the last election the Mayor had definitely promised to make provision for more from the city to relieve congestion, yet practically no steps had been taken In that very important matter. If that work had been undertaken, as It could and should have been, It would have done a great deal toward relieving unemployment, and would have tended to have made business generally better than It had been.

Mr. Bloodworth answered several questions, and was accorded a unanimous vote of thanks and confidence. Mr. C. A. Watts presided.