Los Angeles daily herald., 1874-09-09
"HeraId," Council and Assessor.

sion to defend the Council against
what appeared to be the unjust
aspersions of the Evening Er-
press, and while we shall con-
tinue to uphold the economic
policy Of the Council in a general
sense, we cannot avoid the conviction
that the action of that body in voting
the City Assessor $500 in excess of his
salary is without the warrant of law.
1t Is possible that the officer has
earned more and Is deserving more
than $500, bnt we cannot find nor do
we believe any one will be able to find
the law which invests the Council
with authority to pay him more.
Section of Chapter 2 of the "Charter
and Revised Ordinances of the City Of
Los Angeles" fixes the salaries Of the
city officers for the year ending April
80, 1870. No ordinance affecting that
of the City Assessor has been passed
since. The same is true of the Mayor
and other officers salaries and they
draw to-day just the same sal
ary fixed for 1870. Provision
is made for a modification or
increase of the salary of some
city officers, but the Assessor is not
one of them and it is conceded by
good judges that it was the intention
Of the ordinance to fix the Assessors
salary not only for 1870 but for each
succeeding year, or until the passage
of another ordinance changing or null
lifying the one named. In his "To
the Public" the Assessor says in 1871
he was allowed 500; in 1872 $500, and
in 1873 81 900, but he does not cite the
law or ordinance on which the money
was received. The admission on the
part of the Assessor that he had re-
ceived each year more than the $500
fixed by ordinance, and the failure to
show any law why he should receive
more than that amount ought to settle
the point in the controversy. We
have never claimed nor do we now
claim that the assessment of this city
should be made for $500, but we be-
lieve the suggestion of Mr.. BEAUDRY
very proper one, that no additional
sum should be paid until the Council
informed itself that the Assessor had
performed his work we'll. When he
assesses land for $500 per acre and the
land adjoining sells for $1,000 per
acre there is an error of Judgment
somewhere. Although real estate has
advanced an of average fifteen per cent
throughout the city within the last
year, yet it is a notable fact that ac-
cording to the Assessors books Gov
ernor DowNEY is not worth as much
now by many thousand dollars as he
was last year. The first of those in
stances may be an error of judgment
in the part Of the purchaser of the
land adjoining, and the other may be
explained by the Assessor in his "To
the Public" where he says:
The properties OF the poor, being mostly ac.
tually occupied, present themselves openly to
the public eye, while much of the property of
the rich Is hidden even from the searching
eye of the Assessor; not to mention the fact,
that the rich property holder is more liable to
forget, now and then, one of his numerous
lots, than the poor man to overlook the small
space he dwells upon.
There is sort Of implied apology
for the non-assessment of the rich in
that paragraph, but we will let 1t pass
without comment. In his "To the
Public" the Assessor refers many
time and oft to certain maps which
he thinks the city ought to have fur
nished, but as it did not, he fur
nished himself at considerable
expense" We are afraid that if the
Assessor obtained these maps at "con-
siderable expense" he has been i'm
posed upon, for a gentleman of some
experience in map making assures us
that he will furnish set of such maps
for $75, and make money on the job.
"To the Public" also says: SIN MAX
ing the county State list, section 1858
of the Code says: The Board of SUI
pervisors must provide maps for the
use of the Assessor All of which
means that the City Council must pro-
vide maps for the use of the Assessor"
All of which may be true, but the
Code says nothing about the Council
or city maps. We understand that
the Assessor says, though it is not so
stated in "To the Public" that had
the Council allowed his claim of$1 500,
he would have donated those invalua-
BILE maps to the city. This may have
been the Assessors intention, but we
have not been able to find Council
man, city officer, nor any one to whom
he expressed such intention, prior to
the announcement on the part of the
Mayor that he would not sign war
rant for $3.50, nor for more than ST.
200; no matter what the action of the
Council might be. We will let this
pass, also, and close this controversy
with the statement that, while we do
not charge the Council, nor any num-
Der of its members, with reckless
handling of the peoples money, we
believe it would have been the better,
safer and wiser plan to have adopted
the suggestion of Mr.. BEAUDRY, and
withheld portion of the remunera-
ton claimed by the Assessor until it
was known that he had faithfully and
imnartialIV parforp1 ad hic Hutu