OCR Text |
Show STATE TO BUILD ON OLD ROAD Decision of the. supreme court holding the state road department without authority to relocate a state road found a further application Monday in a dispute of long standing over the route. For several months past there have been differences between factions fac-tions in St. George as to whether the new state highway now projected project-ed there should follow its present route through the business section or whether the road should take a greater curve and traverse a lowei street. At a recent meeting it was thought the mater was threshed out as a vote of confidence was given the state department. Since that time however the commission has received advices that property owners who would be benefitted by the road following fol-lowing the lower street have prevailed prevail-ed on the majority of the county board to demand the new location. It was proposed that the matter be accepted this selection that it be denied de-nied a franchise but this course was carried so far that unless the state not followed. Little question exists but that the state has absolute right-of-way for its highways through corporate limits as the highways are established by law of the state. In any event the state highway commission forwarded a letter to Henry T. Atkin, mayor of St. George, Monday outlining that the state had no alternative but to follow the established es-tablished road location since the supreme su-preme court had held it could not of its own initiative make any change. So far as the state commission is concerned con-cerned this settles the controversy. The court decision did outline that old roads may be abandoned and new locations established by a majority vote of a district but if this course is followed out in St. George it would have to be initiated locally and even then there is a possibility that the state would refuse to build a road on this other alignment. Deseret News. |