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Show f 000 WARRANT IS HELD IIPJY AUDITOR Riric and Land Board at Loggerheads Over Townsite Loan. On the ground thai the security of two mortgages is not in his opinion protecting protect-ing the Interests of the state or of the fund, Joseph Rirte, Mate auditor, jester-day jester-day afternoon refused to issue a warrant for J40.000, for which formal requisition had been made on him by the state board of land commissioners. The warrant was to have been in favor of the Lynndyl Townsite company and the Sevier River Iand & "Water company, of, which Frank Kimball is president. Tn I he meantime, Mr. Kimball has his money, temporarily loaned to him out of the suspense account of the secretary of the land board. And Mr. Kirie as state auditor has instructed Arthur Kuhn, secretary of the board, to have the money back in the suspense account by last night. Seeing that this had been intended, through the issuance of the warrant in the formal manner, Mr. Ririe's request was not met by Mr. Kuhn. As to further developments, de-velopments, Mr. Rlrie is enigmatical. Mr. Kuhn has already suggested that, if the formal requisition of the state land board for warrants to be drawn on funds over which it is supposed to have control, con-trol, for which it is responsible, and where the state Is protected under its bond, were not honored, mandamus proceedings, threatened once before, might be instituted. insti-tuted. The incident of yesterday recalls a former for-mer colloquy between the state board of land commissioners and the auditor, in which the latter held up a warrant for several days, but finally issued it, just before the ln.-t It utlon of inn n damns proceeding pro-ceeding to compel his doing so. The former incident was over the original orig-inal loan made to Die same company, which was fof $120,000. The rompjn had at that time asked for J16Q,000( but. after a conference between the state land board, the state board of examhters. and Mr. Ririe. it was decided the loan should bo put to J1J0.000. When the requisition was made, how c or, Mr. Rtrie still hesitated, hesi-tated, as noted, for some days. Lately the company, having run up against the capital issues committee. ' which limited the- sales of the Pahvant ; district bonds it has in its possession, tasked that the loan be made for the original orig-inal amount. It explained that it is doing do-ing considerable work, at the request of the food administration, .inlarglng Us canal so as to bring 15.000 acres in the Pahvant district under cultivation. Further Fur-ther It is expected that at a later date the capital issues committee having withdrawn with-drawn its objections, the company will be able to open up former channels of financing financ-ing which have been practically closed, for government use, and will dispose of its bonds. In the meantime the company is offering offer-ing the state 4000 acres of land, 8"0 of which is in the Lynndyl townsite. as security, se-curity, along with, what is considered much more valuable, sufficient water tor 4000 acres of land, from its storage rights in the Sevier bridge dam. Mr. Ririe's action yesterday was on the ground that these rights should have been covered by one . mortgage, instead of by two. He added, however, a reference refer-ence to the former meeting with the hoard of examiners, and said further that since the state law requires that land board loans should be made up to only 50 per cent of the value of the security, a loan of $1 6.00(1 would mean a security of $:;20,-000. $:;20,-000. In his opinion, he stated, the security se-curity offered was not worth that much. He also repeated the argument he had formerly used Ineffectively, to the effect that the amount would do more good distributed dis-tributed among a number of farmers than loaned in a lump sun to one "promotion company." Under the law ns interpreted by other state officials, including the members of the state land board, but not excluding all others, the members t.f the land board are made the judges as to the value of a security, subject, of course, to action which may be taken by any citizen iNJt is found that they are exceeding their rights, or that their judgment is wrong. There are also many persons who will contend con-tend that the water rights, alone o 4000 acres would be worth more than the value of f 320. 000, let aljne the farm lands and the townsite. Some question has arisen, however, as to whether the construction of irrigation ditches and the storage of water for ihem can be termed Improvements Improve-ments under the law, which requires that the loans be made on improved lands. |
