Show A HEAVY TAX 1 j it Aggregates 278 Per 1 Gent I 1 WASTEFUL EXPENSE f Claims Due to Negligence of City Officers CLOTES PRINCELY INCOME i I fortunes Squandered on the Joint Public Jiulldin in Sewer Construction and Waterworks Ignorance in worldly matters once led me to believe that taxation was a certain just anrl equal method of exacting contributions contri-butions from the people by the government govern-ment and that the ideas of consideration I nnd particularly of burden to benefit are essential parts of taxation In Salt Lake city as elsewhere the taxing powers do not consider our ability to pay taxes when I Imposing them Our system is arranged so as to take from suffering public its substance sub-stance in homeopathic doses with power of I infinite repetition The chanels through I which the revenues are drawn are various nnd mostly irrational Some are taxed because be-cause engaged in a business we are all proud of Some are taxed because engaged in a business supposed to degrade women others degraded women who are engaged in degrading men are occasionally taxed by way of tines for a continuous permissive permis-sive violation of the criminal law Some are taxed because of good health and others exempt because of bad health Some are I taxed because of being of one sex and exempt ex-empt because of another Some are taxed because poor enough to own a dog of I course no one will claim that a licensed I dog is less dangerous than an unlicensed dog or enjoys more privileges Some are taxed on interests they own here because be-cause they live here and nonresidents are untaxed on similar interest In one instance in-stance our learned tl liberal 1 Republican Republi-can city council attempts to say a man shall not tell the truth without a license SUM AT THESE JRUJLTIOXALITIES can be remedied others cannot some are due to territorial legislation others to absurd ab-surd city ordinances These taxes are none the less irrational because some of them are universally tolerated I refer to these matters at this time only for the purpose pur-pose of showing the ways and means of our taxing power My inquiry shall be directed to the amount of taxes drawu front the taxpayers and their expenditure According to Mayor Scotts report of January i 11S91 thecit disbursements for I one year amounted to 91701552 To this should be added the poll tax of about 5000 persons at 300 each who did not pay their poll tax in cash amounting to frl300000 also one years expenditure of the school board amounting to 15958730 making a total of 103J502S9 that being 201 per cent of 54000000 the assessed valuation of property for that year To this should be added 07 per cent countv find territorial tax thus showing the various var-ious government powers to have expended U73 per cent of the peoples money in one i year But perhaps this is all right if well expended ex-pended so let us enquire into the business methods of our tax disbursers and the results re-sults thereof There was expended for claims and damages 7273 There were pending on January 1 1891 suits cl aiming 33000 more of DAMAGES FOR EGL1GEXCE of city officers and by this time lam informed in-formed the amount of negligence claims bued for amount to nearly 100000 This litigation together with numerous injunction suits and increased criminal business necessitated a very material increase in-crease in tho salary of the city attorney Of the taxes collected 37220043 came through the qffice of the collector on which lio is entitled by the grace of the city council coun-cil to receive 2Ji per cent or S305 In addition to this the collector makes a profit of TOe for each delinQuent advertised and gets very remunerative fees for advertising and selling property for delinquent taxes The city besides paying this handsome salary paid for postage stamps and clerk hire etc in the collectors office during the year 705687 The city and county building foolishness cost 1081041 and after this expenditure and all tho cussing we heaped on the old council for its tardiness in the matter of the city and county building we after two years of patience are not as far along as when the Liberals took the reins The report of the expert water commission F commis-sion which will be useful in years to come but is now filed away for safe keeping to await its usefulness cost 2898a An unlawful city ordinance providing for prison labor was allowed to continue in force These prisoners work about half the time of paid labor and while they work accomplish about half as much so the work of 1676 PRISON LABOR DATS are worth about S33 In order to keep good the promise of Salt Lake work for Salt Lake workmen the city paid 1300 in thirteen weeks for guard hire while securing S3S worth of this work I believed that an easy manner of determining deter-mining whether or not the disbursements of the administration were made upon economical business principles is to make comparisons of cost of publio works so I turned my attention to sewer construction but found the opportunities for comparison very unsatisfactory In the first place one mayors report shows sever construction to have 50 per cent of its sewers on piles j the other 20 per cent Then again I am informed in-formed that tho cost of this piling depends ulon the depth of the sewer as does also the cost per cubic yard of excavation I also remembered that the sewer work under a tho old administration was done in midwinter mid-winter at a needlessly increased cost and as we alleged for political purposes I find in the reports however two items very nearly alike and from these we can make some comparison In the report for 1889 I find one item of 6941 feet of sewers all on piles in clay and water trench 105 feet deep 3 feet wide costing 394 per foot To make it exactly correspond in depth with an item in the report for 1S90 there should be added the cost of increasing tho depth to 119 feet or in other words the cost of excavating 4 cubic feet for each a lineal foot or about Be thus making the cost 397 per lineal foot In the report fore for-e 1 Iii nd 11301 feet of sewer construe 0 v tion all on piles trench 119 feet deep andS and-S feet wide in clay sand and water costing cost-ing 475110 per foot thus showing an increased cost in the sewer construction of 22 per cent Since this item is the only one I find upon which anything like a fair comparison com-parison can be made I must assume It to represent the increase on the whole system TRIS 22 PER CENT INCREASE amounts to 3172331 out of the total cost of constructing sewer and I must assume that sum to have been wasted until I find reasons why sewers could not be built as cheaply in 1890 as in 1SS9 On the water extensions comparisons are very accurate because of the uniformity uniform-ity of the work In 1SS9 according to the may ors report there were constructea 32J miles of extension ex-tension at a cost of 66204 or 2054 per 1 mile In 1890 according to the report of I Mayor Scott there were constructed 5395 miles at a cost of 17795935 or a cost of 329360 per mile This is an increase in the cost of C06 per ceut Putting it in another form it is a waste of 124460 per mile or on 5395 miles a waste of 6714617 and all this notwithstanding tile boast of a Liberal officeholder that the cost of pipe has been decreased per cent Still another way of showing what this means is to say that at the old cost the amount of money expended in 1S90 for water extension ex-tension should have built 8064 miles instead in-stead of 5395 miles It is uncharitable to say that illiterate councilmen are boodlers and I hope the Tribune will not cry boodleism in explaining explain-ing these figures and I ask that my arguments be not answered by abuse If I have erred and these figures can be interpreted in-terpreted advantageously to the administration adminis-tration I will be among those to rejoice Yours for Democracy economy and progress A T HEIST |