Mr. Mestayer and the Council.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7869, 11 July 1905, Page 2

Mr. Mestayer and the Council.

THE DELAY IN THE LIGHTING | SCHEMEs COUNCIL REITERATES ITS DISSATISFACTION. In acknowledging the letter Horn the New Ply won tl) Borough Council Willi reference to the delay in the electric lighting, scheme, the consulting engineer (Mr R. L. Mesta.y>>r) wrote to the Council on Monday e\iniii!?. under (late June 30:— •I regret," he prefaced his remaiKS, "that owing to misunderstanding ot facts, your Council .should have thought it necessary to atkiwt a tone which is uncalled for, and extremely unjust to me." With regard to the delay in altering the plans and specifications lor the pow-

■;■ station, he was in tio way respon,ible (or this. The borough engineer uad forwarded him a schedule of alerations required by -the Council, md this, together with the specifications, reached 'him on May 20. On „hc following day he wrote to the iwrough engineer pointing out objections to some of the proposals, and asking for a re-consideration oi some of them, also asking for fullei particulars as to some others lie did not understand. This was a month ago, and he had not received an anjswer to the letter. Mr Mcstayer, continuing, denied that the latter part of his letter to Mr Black, electrical engineer, was intended, oi even appeared, to throw the onus of all delay on the Council. It merely stated that the Brush Company was not responsible for "all" delay. "I most strongly protest, against the following passage in the Council's letter : 'Altogether the Council has to express its emphatic dissatisfaction at the perfunctory manner in which the contract 'has been allowed by you to proceed, and at its present disappointing condition.' " Mr Mcstayer declared that he bad done his best .to push the matter forward, and no delay had been occasioned by any action, or want of action, on his part or that of his office. The principal factor in causing delay was the necessity of communicating with a firm which had no branch establishment in tho colony, so that a fortnight, and sometimes more, had to elapse before an answer could be obtained to any question, no matter how urgent it might be.. Mr Mestayer also took exception -to the passage in which the Council alluded to "the unsatisfactory character and tone of your letter by which you seek to delay the installation a still longer indefinite period." This misrepresented entirely what lie said to Air Black. It was not true to say that he sought to delay the work, nor would his remarks bear any such , interpretation. With regard to the plans coming forward in a "piecemeal condition," he had been trying to study the desires of the Council, and give the members of the Electric Lighting Committee the opportunity of going over the main portions of tho work as long before the Council meeting as possible. Respecting the "unintelligible blue prints" they were not part of the contract drawings, and were quite sufficiently intelligible for the purpose which they were intended to serve. The bills ol quantities also did not form part of the contract work.

In conclusion, Mr Mestayer remarked : "I trust your Council, in view of the foregoing facts, will realise that a serious injustice has been done me, and will take an early opportunity of withdrawing the letter in question." In reply to this the Electric Lighting Committee submitted the draft of a letter, which was adopted, and ordered to be sent to Mr Mestayer. This letter pointed out thai. Mr Mestayer appeared to ignore the contention of the Council" which was that the contract for the electric light installation was signed by the Brush Company on Oct. 8, 1904 ; by the terms of, the contract the work was to have been completed by July 15, 1905, and the Corporation was to construct the power and distributing stations and ttie bead and tail races "to places to be supplied by the contractors." No plan or data to enable the Corporation to do this work came to hand until May 16', 19fl. r ), seven months after the contract bad been signed. The Council contend that these plans should, and could, have been to hand by, say, jurist mas, 1904. The Council quite understood that until Mr Mestayer received the necessary data from the contractors to cnalble him to prepare these plans.they could not be forthcoming ; but, as he stated in his last letter "all this delay is no fault of the Brush Company's," the Council could only conclude that he (Mr Mestayer) had this data, and that in consequence of the perfunctory manner in which lie allowed the contract to proceed the plans were not prepared until some months after it was supplied. In his last letter Mr Mestayer said "I am inclined to think that it would be almost as well to let the work stand over until after the winter," etc. Was not this seeking to delay it a still further and iuitelimtc period ?

The letter further set out how the early and successful completion of this installation was of very great importance to the Council, which had the cost of it locked up until the revenue from the working scheme was derived. The Council was paying £23 per mon th to/the Gas Company and the opposition were taking advantage of the delays in the municipal scheme, Again, work that should and could have been done in the summer had now to be done in the winter ; some important concrete work had to be put in in nfac--tically 10 feet of water, when at any time between January and April could have been done iii comparably di - ground. These unfortunate i conditions could not but result the Council's letter to Mr Mes'TheCounei ca, not hut express its cstreme disa of"(' r; ,l n t at I" 1 ' condi S, ot the contract and sees n« r„ n "»AST r ing of &* : oaiiMaction it has expressed."-