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Show New. License Tax Ordinance Gives the Company a Franchise. MEASURE IS ADOPTED BY UNANIMOUS VOTE If Action Proves Acceptable, Long-Continued Controversy Contro-versy Ends. The Rocky Mountain Bell Telephone company was "discovered" at Tuesday night's session of tho City Council. In j tho opinion of City Attorney II. J. Din- j iuny and Councilman J. J. Stewart, as well as several others, tho amended ordinanco introduced by Mr. Stewart, giving the concern the option of paying pay-ing the licenso tax or giving tho city 1 per cent of its gross earnings in return re-turn for operating privileges carries a franchise with it, if the company does not already havo ono. Mr. Stewart's ordinance, which amends sections 30(5 and 397, making it optional with tho tolcphono companies com-panies as to whether they pay the li; cense tax or give tho aily 1 per cent ol their gross earnings, was unanimously adopted. President Davis and Council-men Council-men O'Donncll, Wood and Murdoch being be-ing absent. Mr. Black was in the chair. Amended Provision. Tho amended ordinanco provides that it shall be unlawful for an person, firm or corporation to operate or maintain main-tain any telephone instrument for which a charge is made, without first obtaining a quarterly license., beginning begin-ning January 1 of each year for each and cver3 instrument so maintained in the quarter next preceding tho application applica-tion for such license. A quarterly license tax of 25 cents is provided for each phone for which $00 or over is annually charged, and a quarterly-license tax oi iyj cunt. is provided for each phono for which less than $60 is received. Thou comes tho option of paying 1 per cent of the gross earnings in lieu of tho licenso tax, which tho companies most likely will accept, and Mr. Dininny is of the opinion opin-ion that the closing sentence of this proviso grants the Bell . company a franchise, which opinion is shared by several other prominent attorneys. Mr. Stewart says. The closing sentenco of tho proviso is as follows: "And all telephone companies that accept this ordinanco in writing within ten days after its approval by the Mavor shall have tho benefit thereof until the end of tho corporatq existence exist-ence of such companies, respectively." End of Existence. Tho 'end of tho Bell company's corporate cor-porate existence is 3933, Mr. Stewart Stew-art at first was bitterly opposed to taking any action that would grant the company a franchise, but explained his change of attitude on tho ground that tho city has been getting nothing but the free use of forty-three- phones from this concern for several .years, whereas by tho passing of the ordinance ordi-nance it will receive besides fifty free phones from each company and about .$2500 in cash from the Bell annually, which tho municipality has lost for 3'cars. Tho receipts to the city from the Independent Telephone company from its gross earnings, on which basis it already al-ready ifii amount to about $1500, it is said." To determine the city's share of the annual gross earnings the municipality mu-nicipality will have tho authority to appoint an auditing committee to examine ex-amine the telephone companies' books at the end of each year for the preceding pre-ceding twelvo months. Tho adoption of the ordinance ends nine months of controversy and investigation. inves-tigation. It is understood that the Bell company is willing to accept l.ho gross earnings proposition and to pay the cit- for tho year of 190S. |