GREYTOWN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 August 1941, Page 7

GREYTOWN

BOROUGH COUNCIL ESTIMATES ADOPTED. ("Times-Age” Special.) The estimates for the year ended March 31, 1942, for the Borough of Grey town were submitted to a special meeting of the council held last evening. The Mayor, Mr A. W. Horton, presided. The Mayor stated that in 1935 the debt of the borough was £38,159 0s 7d. This had been reduced to £28,655 15s 9d, a decrease of £9,503 4s lOd. Of every £1 collected 14s 3d went to pay interest, and sinking fund, leaving 5s 9d to be expended on borough services. A vote of sympathy was passed to the relatives of the late Mr J. E. Raison, who was a former member of the council. The council agreed to the transfer of a piece of land from F. C. Bunny to T. Farmer. The transfer of the lease of the council land from Heapy’s Estate to Ling Sing was approved. The town clerk reported inter alia as follows in connection with the estimates: The estimates provide for rates totalling 41d in the £ made up as under: —(1) A consolidated borough rate of 2:;d in the £ made up as follows: General rate, 2d (increase of ]d); library rate, l-16d; hospital rate, 7-16 d (increase of l-16d); lighting rate, -Jd; (2) a consolidated loan rate of l?d in the £ made up as follows: No. 1 special conversion loan £d (increase of 23-512 d); No. 2 special conversion loan lid. Against these increases I recommend that the special water race loan rate of 21-256 d in the £ be not struck I also recommend that the high pressure water supply rate of 1 per cent on the annual value be not struck. The reasons for the various increases are: General rate: As we are unable to transfer the surplus from the high pressure water supply account, the receipts in this account will be about £230 less. Besides this we have to allow this year for the following additional expenditure, some of which will be non-recurring: Change over to electricity of borough properties, £400; building of foundation wall at fire station, £100; grant to Home Guard, £25; emergency precautions scheme expenses, £l5. To enable this expenditure to be met I recommend that no grant be made to the Gas Department this year. Hospital rate account is £2lO Ils 3d in debit and with the proposed increase it will take four or five years to wipe this debit out at the present rate of the hospital levy. The special conversion loan rates struck are insufficient to meet the interest and sinking fund charges even with the proposed increase but the credits in these accounts will make up the deficiency for the next three or four years. The rates proposed to be struck this year amount to £4,411 2s 3d. The estimates provide for a deficiency of £173 7s 4d. The estimates were adopted. Personal Items. Mr and Mrs R. Tilson, Junr., have returned to Papawai from a holiday visit to Wellington. Mr G. Gray has returned to Greytown after having attended the Small Fruit Growers’ Conference at Wellington. Mrs J. Reid, of Kuratawhiti Street, is at present a visitor to Wellington. Vital Statistics. The vital statistics for Greytown for July are: Births 6, marriages nil, deaths 3. Rainfall Record. The rainfall for July was 423 points. There were 16 wet days. For the same period last year 229 points were registered, there being 16 wet days.