| OCR Text |
Show I Water on the Urain-Crti&ens I Don't K.nobv Whether to I TaKe ft or not. Ogden, July 24, 1903. At this Avriting the prospect for the city administration's ad-ministration's pet measure, the voting of bonds to buy the water system, is anything but flattering. On the surface nothing appears to be doing either for or against the proposition, but the few who venture an opinion are practically a unit against it. The administration may have a joker up its sleeve in the shape of an eleventh hour newspaper newspa-per fight, by which it expects to bull-con the people, peo-ple, but there has been no appropriation to cover the cost. The proprietor of the Standard should not be asked to throw his paper wide open in the cause for less than; $1,000. If the money is not forthcoming the Standard could not be blamed if it ignored the whole proposition. w lv O Here are some of the reasons why the bond deal is not popular. Said an old-time citizen and former member of the Advisory Committee: "I am against the present bond issue for the reason that the details of the purchase of the waterworks water-works have been arranged for by a select few of the council associated with the mayor, and the Advisory Committee has been entirely ignored. There are doubtless features of the proposed transaction which the people know nothing about. In the first place the price is too high and the people who are now pushing the deal have heretofore here-tofore said the same. I am not satisfied with the look of the thing and from what I can hear I believe be-lieve the people will get the worst of it if the deal goes through." ( 5 w A well known lawyer said: "I am against the bond issue. I do not care particularly wheth er it carries or not, as I bolieve the whole thing could be knocked sky high if a test case were made of it. tn voting for bonds the law plainly says that the purpose for which the bonds are voted must be clearly stated in the notice of election. elec-tion. In the advertisement now running the language lan-guage says 'to buy the whole or a part of the Og-gon Og-gon waterworks.' That means that the council does not know whether it wants all the system or only a part of it and the people do not know whether the city is to own the system or go into partnership with Bill Glasmann and Dave Eccles. It is illegal on the face of it. It would be very difficult to dispose of the bonds on that account." & & & Another prominent citizen said: "If the people peo-ple who favor the bond deal had not proved by the testimony of competent engineers that the water system is not worth half what they now propose to pay for it, I might have been pursuad-ed pursuad-ed to vote "yes." But how on earth the mayor, and city attorney, and council, the very men who declared the proposed purchase two years ago, to be a rascally outrage, can have the face to ask the people to get together and assist in perpetrating an outrage of the same kidney, is beyond my idea of decency. The water system is not worth a cent more than $200,000. The plant is old and already half worn out. The proposed deal is little lit-tle short of a crime.' & e & Another citizen, well to do, bad this objection: "The city is now bonded, to the limit. We are in debt head over heels. By a new law wo are permitted to incur an additional indebtedness in order to acquire waterworks. If we vote these bonds we will be up to the limit on that, too. The present owners of the water system are shrewd men. They are ready to let a property go that is now clearing them over $20,000 a year. Why? Because they know the plant will soon need to bo H renewed all along the line and they want to sluff H on the city before it falls to pieces. If the poo- M pie are wise they will not saddle on themselves M more debt for a property that will require $100,000 M for repairs before five years. It is a poor busi- M ncss proposition and I am against it." M |
