The Phoenix herald., 1879-03-08
THE SITUATION.
An Open Letter to the Board or
 Supery iS0 DTS

GENTLEMEN: By the acts of the : last Legislature peace be to their
 ashes) you are called upon to issue bonds to the amount of S6,000 to
 build a wagon road to Maricopa
 Wells, also to issue bonds to the
 amount of $40,O00 to construct q
 courthouse, and S1J0,O0O to any rail
 road company that may build a road
 from Maricopa Wells to Prescott via
 Phoenix, making sum total of $196,-
 GOO, said bonds to draw interest at the
 rate of 10 per cent. per annum, mak-
 ing $19,600 interest annually. To
 this add 10 per cent. for collecting,
 and we will have to pay S21 ,5G0 year
 ly on these bonds, or only $162 less
 than all the taxes we now pay, or
 equal to the sum of 543,283 that we
 will have to pay each year, if our
 territorial taxes are no higher than
 they were last year, and this tax is to ] be raised from an assessment roll of { S105, ,212-the amount of taxable
 property in this county, hence our
 rate of taxation will be S6 137 per S100 But our taxable property will
 very likely shrink S100,0G0 the first
 year after these bonds are issued
 Gentlemen ofthe Board can we stand i this rate of taxation at this time? In
 a new and issolated country, mostly
 settled by poor people, who have i'm
 migrated 10 this oasis in the desert to
 make themselves home. And this ad-
 ditional tax, that has been voted by
 those Quast legislators is to be taken
 from our hard earnings, that We can
 not spare from our business, if indeed we can pay it at all. Were we allowed to retain these amounts in our sever- al vacations, allowing that we can so invest the same that it will bring us
 10 per cent per annum, it will amount to the enormous sum of 1880, 900. That is to say S4G,C00 at compound
 interest at 10 per cent for 15 years and $150,000 at the same rate for twenty years will equal $1,3S0,OOO, and this vast sum does not include collectors fees, which is 10 per cent on all the money collected, or nearly s4O,00O more. Are you prepared to clinch the nail that fastens this previous bur den upon us by issuing these bonds?
 In you gentlemen, center our most sanguine hopes of avoiding this fear ful taxation, which if levied will as surely bankruptthc county as the bur den is laid upon us. Iris true we may pre- vail on Congress to declare null and void these omnibus bond laws. . which We are trying, and we might { perchance defeat the same in the courts, but which iS slow anal | expensive, Lut we repeat ! our surest safeguard is iii our board of supervisors. And we enter our humble but solemn protest against your issuing single bond for either of the purposes mentioned These statements arc based on the proposition that we will get for value received for every dollar expended, but will this be so. Judging the flu ture of road building by the past, in this county, for the S1S,000 that the road will have cost us, by the time the bonds mature and are paid, we will has a road that two good horses can draw four men, in a spring wag- on over, fit they have plenty of time 10 <. do the same. Our present courthouse answers every purpose, but for style But issue the S4O,O0O worth of bonds, and sell them a. eighty cents per S1 and you will have a $32, 1000 building that will cost in the end S162, 900 in- terest compounded And for the S1,- 200 900 that these railroad Loads in twenty years, and you have what Echo answers, what equiv alent, will we have Another and very serious feature of this suicidal bond issuing by our would be legis- lative solonI-is, that our warrants will be very likely to depreciate to from 40 to 50 cents on the dollar, hence for every dollars worth of la Dor we employ or purchase we make, -he taxpayers will have 10 pay two 7 dollars in taxes with collc ctor's fees added. TAXPAYER.