As alluded to in the previous post, this month the council will deal with a potentially quite contentious item - reform of local government. We will be considering reducing councillor numbers from 12 down to 9. The ministers preferred range is 6 to 9 . Straight up I have got to tell you that Im in favour of this. Anyway Ive been doing a little research into the Council history that you may find interesting. On September 22, 1911 the Governor Sir Gerald Strickland created the Denmark Road District. Elections were held on December 2 and the first meeting of the board was in early 1912.
George Arthur Flay was the first Chairman. Other members were Arnold Adams , Henry Kingdon , John Ricketts , Edward McLean , Joseph Smith and Gilbert Staker. Harold Buckley was secretary.
The area of the district in 1912 was 775 square miles (today 1842 sq. kms = 720 sq. miles ). Number of electors was 192 !!!! and total revenue was 884 pounds sterling ! ( Garry are you reading this ? )
Ive been unable to find a picture of the original Board. The one above is from 1919.Front row third from the left is George Arthur Flay , still chairman and on his left is Joseph Smith. Joseph was remarkable in that he served continuously from 1912 till 1946 - a truly amazing achievement.
So in the beginning there were 7 board members and no wards. In 1913 5 wards were created -East,West and North wards each having one member plus a South and Town ward with 2 each. Note there was a member for every 28 electors !!
Moving forward to today we have 12 councillors with 3 wards and the councillor/elector ratio is 1:343
The proposal is to maintain the 3 wards but reduce the number of councillors in each by one leaving 9 councillors in total with a councillor/elector ratio of 1:458
Once again I recommend that you visit the Historical Society Museum .... an Aladdin's cave.
Stay tuned.
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