HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
ADDRESS BY CHAIRMAN.
Ladies and Gentlemen, before taking the first item on to-day's agenda, Members will wish me to welcome Dr. BELL and Mr. MARDEN back to Hong Kong. (Laughter). As some Members will know, they are absent at the moment attending the first meeting of the Air Pollution Committee. I hope to see them here soon.
MINUTES.
The Minutes of the meeting of the Council held on 10th January, 1967 were confirmed.
PAPERS.
THE CHAIRMAN laid upon the table the following papers:
(1) Report on the work of the Urban Council and Urban Services Department for the month of January, 1967.
(2) Urban Council and Urban Services Department Statistical Report for the period 1st October, 1966 to 31st December, 1966.
(3) Report by the Commissioner for Resettlement on the progress of clearance and resettlement operations during the period 1st October, 1966 to 31st December, 1966.
(4) Analysis of Staff Increases 1967/68-Urban Services Department.
(5) Booklet on Public Facilities Managed or Being Planned by the Parks, Recreation and Amenities Division of the Urban Services Department.
COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT:-Mr. Chairman, I feel that I owe Members an explanation of one figure in the third paper listed in the agenda. In paragraph 26 of my Quarterly Report for the months October to December, 1966, Members may have noticed, I know that Dr. BELL certainly has, that the amount of rent written off last quarter amounted to about $11,000 as compared with approximately $7,000 in the previous quarter, and that this represented 0.08% of our collections instead of the usual 0.02%. My explanation is that this is not a real increase in irrecoverable arrears at all, it merely reflects the change in our procedure whereby we are writing off arrears rather earlier than we used to, and the whole thing I expect will even itself out very shortly.
(Dr. A. M. S. Bell and Mr. J. L. Marden arrived at this point)
MR. SALES: Sir, I wish to exercise my right as Chairman of the Parks, Recreation and Amenities Select Committee to comment on the papers which you laid before Council to-day. Before I do so, may I echo the welcome which you extended to Dr. BELL and Mr. MARDEN earlier in the afternoon upon their return to this Council.
The Select Committee concerned is very anxious that the programme which has been developed for concerts to be made available to the public every Sunday, alternating between the Island and the peninsula, should be given every support by members of the public, and for this reason, Sir, I take this opportunity of mentioning on this occasion, hoping that the experiment will be successful to the extent that the Select Committee will be encouraged to the point of having these concerts every Sunday on both sides of the harbour, instead of just alternating between the Island and the peninsula.
My second purpose in asking for the floor is to bring to the attention of the Members of this Council the booklet which has been published by your Department, and for which congratulations to your Department are due. It is a record of the work that has been done in the past nine years, and it is also a projection of the plans which Council has for the future. In this connection, it is advisable for me to say that, as projections, they must depend on the allocation of land and the availability of money, but it is our hope that these will be made available to us, both land and money, so that the interests of the public may be served.
Sir, to-day is also by convention the occasion for the debate on estimates. The estimates have just been tabled, and I would like to invite Council's attention to the item on page 2 which lists the post of Senior Executive Officer. I would like to express the hope on behalf of the Select Committee that this post will be created as soon as possible. It is certainly a key one and is deserving of every consideration by the Government. Without a Senior Executive Officer to help the Division, the Select Committee may not be able to achieve its objectives as soon as it wishes.
The second point about the estimates is that I have not been able to find in this paper the creation of posts to man the incinerator which is now apparently functioning. I was not aware, Sir, that the Urban Services Department, or the Urban Council for that matter, had inaugurated this incinerator until I saw in the papers this morning that the police had moved in and rather muscled in on the Urban Council and used our incinerator to burn their drugs. No doubt, Sir, it is the intention of the Government to man this incinerator with police constables in the near future. In this respect may I suggest that we draft the Commissioner of Police into the Urban Council so that, as a Member of the Urban Council, we may ensure that he runs the incinerator properly. (Laughter).
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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL