the town commissioner

Korero (AEWS), Volume 3, Issue 1, 12 February 1945, Page 25

the town commissioner

A KORERO Report

/"riHE members of the local authority The members New Zealand town are in a small New Zealand town are

Town Commissioners, not Councillors, but in essentials the local authority is the same : a small body of men elected by their fellow-townsmen to manage the affairs of the community. Although the powers of a Town Board are not as great as those of a borough, many towns are bigger than some boroughs. As a point of interest there are in New Zealand seven independent town districts with

a population of 1,000 or over and twentyone boroughs with a population of less than 1,000.

Board meetings where the five to seven Commissioners each district is allowed by Act of Parliament, debate affairs ; committee meetings, where perhaps two or three Commissioners thrash things out in detail —that is the way of it. Their main task is to provide amenities for the townspeople, water, light, drainage, playing-fields, and parks.

And to do that they need money, and the money must come from rates. No one likes paying rates, and in a small community where Commissioners are easily accessible and the Board’s offices a brisk walk from most places in the town the local representatives soon hear their fellow-townspeople’s views on the subject.

The staff of a Town Board is small, almost microscopic, and plant and machinery are scant. But if they do not keep their drains and sewage works up to standard the Health Department of the Government is soon on their doorstep to ask why and the Public Works Department takes more than an academic interest in the Board’s maintenance of the highways that traverse the town.

With staff so small, a good deal of the work of supervision of local undertakings falls to the lot of the individual Commissioner. If he has specialized knowledge (he may be an engineer or builder by craft), so much the better, and so much more fortunate for the Board. His knowledge and experience will be invaluable.

And on occasion when the job is big and the men to do it few, well—the Commissioner can honestly say he is working for the town, for off comes his coat, and, with pick or long-handled shovel, he helps to build up the town in a literal sense.

His position is not an exalted one, the prestige it carries perhaps not great, but the Town Commissioner, as much as any of the members of local authorities, is “ of and for the people.”