TAKAPUNA AFFAIRS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 805, 28 October 1929, Page 8

TAKAPUNA AFFAIRS

The action of the Mayor of Takacn,m •, Mr ’ • Wi Hiamson) and certain ° rS m increasing the salary of the town clerk to £6OO, with benzine fime Wa «f e ',e at - the Present inopportune time should give the already overt,urdened ratepayers something to think about following Mr. Williamson’s 1 preelection pledges about “economy ” I am glad the Mayor had motioned “economy,” otherwise I should not have noticed it; but I should like to coin? IV ,I th I 1 I th ® present salaries of the town clerks of our neighbouring bor °£ f o S T n D d e ' £ ° 37 P -° rt and >rthcoTe-are A.OUU and £37d respectively. n 1 was chairman of the legal Mr d 'T a U?“ comm ittee during part of Mr. Gould's term of office Mayor the town clerk’s salary was £450. with no benzine allowance for a motor-car. when un< * er normal conditions, but uhen concrete roading and seweratre works were put in hand the ™w„ thß rl^dfr? lary , Was raised to £SOO for the additional office work involved \ further increase of £SO and a boniTs that ®if V an r °"’ and 1 then thought +L lf anything, the council had erred on the side of generosity. On the com 2nd ?he°r d he ooncrete ’roads" howeveV, stalh,il ?K C ° n of the sewerage Indea«ased WOrk of the town clerk aecreased in proportion, and if a change in his salary were contemplated (Continued in next column.)

it should, to my mind, have had a downward tendency toward the normal amount of £450; but Mr. Williamson and his adherents have seen fit to increase the salary to £6OO, and in addition the town clerk gets a concession m the way of benzine for his motorcar.

While on the question of “economy” it would be interesting to know why Mr ; Williamson and his colleagues while on the previous council saw fit to allocate—one week prior to the last municipal election—a sum of £640 out this year’s revenue for work on a few side streets, without applying for a subsidy on the amount, which additional sum would have extended the work to other side streets, and at the same time would have assisted to a greater degree in overcoming the unemployment problem then so acute. This £640, and a portion of other moneys, amounting to nearly £2,000 included in this year’s estimates, might well have been left to new blood on the new council to handle, seeing that the new party in the field advocated the permanent construction of side streets with many unemployed then in the borough. Since the election, however, the permanent footpaths’ construction policy of the “new blood” has been adopted; but it w-ould be interesting to know why Messrs. Hayden, Williamson and party while on the previous council did not take advantage of the subsidy then offering. ALEX. H. WILKIE, Councillor, Takapuna Borough