Page 46 - Bulletin 7 2003

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improvement and development which lies before the Council success will not be
attained by undoing the good work which has been done in the past two years,
and thus hampering the future work of the Council, whose time should be taken
up by construction and not destruction. Nothwithstanding recent difference of
opinion, I have to thank the Councillors for their uniform courtesy to myself as
their chairman.

Councillor Kleinschmidt proposed that the minute be recorded.

Councillor Pocock said the thanks of the Council and of the Municipality were
due to the Mayor for the time he had devoted and the energy he had displayed in
the interests of the Municipality, but with regard to his minute, it was only just
and right that the majority of two-thirds of the Council should be given credit for
doing what they considered best in the interests of the Municipality. It was
because they all realised that the necessity for a good and efficient water scheme,
and because they were desirous of having a sufficient revenue to construct roads,
light the municipality, and have better police supervision that they had moved in
the matter of effecting economy in the extravagant expenditure that had been
going on in connection with sanitary removals, and he thought it very
ungenerous on the part of the Mayor to suggest that they were banded together in
a policy of destruction instead of construction.

The Mayor: the motion before the meeting is that the minute be recorded.

Councillor Pocock said they would have an opportunity of criticising the minute
when it appeared in print, and therefore he seconded the motion.

The Mayor: I intend to remain in the Council, because it may be that the
ratepayers will or will not support the policy which has been carried out during
the last two years, and which now, unfortunately, has been reversed. I now beg
to tender my resignation as mayor.

The meeting was then adjourned.

The Wynberg Times, 17 July 1897.

The differences between Capt. Brooke-Smith and his fellow councillors came to
a head during July-August of 1897 over the land valuation process. Brooke-

Smith insisted on the appointment of an independent valuator to establish the
price of municipal lands to be sold to raise funds for the public works. The other

councillors maintained that Council itself should fix the price as they knew its

value better than an outsider. Over this impasse he finally resigned from the
Council in August 1897 and his place was taken by H. H. Scowen.