The Waco daily examiner. [volume] (Waco, Tex.) 187?-1888, 1882-05-25

AS OTHERS sen as.
a Convenience which Waco Is
SeSiigens in Not supplying.

In the last thr- g years it has been asked
by the press and numerous citizens why
1t is Waco does not have record of
building permits. On more than one
occasion reas ms have been given why
we should have such a record, which
were considered reasonable, and which
in this connection 1t IL not necessary to
repeat in d tail, yet the matter seems to
have never been thought Of, much less
discussed. If It were mething that
was going to be a source of expense to
establish, and would entail the necessity
OF Creating new office and officer we
could see why it might be advisable to
let the matt stand over, but such is
not the Gaze. 1t would be simply Il
benefit to the city at no cash outlay and
no cost at any time or IN any way save
the trouble of registering permit,
when the person made application for
1t, giving the name of street, number Of
lot, size of Guiding and the material OF
which it is to be constructed. A re-
porter was yesterday app. oached by a
gentleman who has been gathering
! Texas statistics for several months and
who a number of years ago was quite
familiar with Waco. He was much
pie sed to see the growth OF the city
and notice the handsome and substan-
tial improvements which have been
made He expressed a desire to get
some datu as To the number, character
and approximate value of buildings
and other improvements III the last
! three years and asked us if we could
| give numbers and figures. Though
/ here all that time and long
/ time before the date to
which he wished to 20 back, We were
/ obliged to tell him that We could not
satisfy his desire, for We had never been
able to obtain the figures for ourselves.
is there no building permit recor
/ kept2' he inquired. None at all"
/ Closing his memorandum book he re-
marked that he "was not going TO waste
/ time getting statistics III a place Of ten
/ Thousand inhabitants when there was
/ nothing whereby c 'en the c I OF IS
/ mid tell anything about the .creas or
/ decrease from year to year" We ven
tured TO ask him the nature of his bust
/ ness with the statistics and if impcra-
tive to have them We would do the
best we could FOR him from
our special editions, the assessors books,
etc, and would take pleasure IN intro
ducing him to any OF our officers who
might be able to give him some infor-
nation. He SAID he would rather not,
as he could not get exact figures, dis
close the reason for wishing them and
quietly taking his vilise ne left on the
Missouri Pacific train. We very strong
ly surmised the cause which made he
gentleman seek the figures and II We are
right III our opinion, which time Will
disclose, Waco is loser, and we do not
blame the gentleman for refusing TO
work up thing which could
easily be matter of
record. But for whatever purpose he
may have wanted to see ii building
permit record he found one place claim
ing to be a live progressive city which
has not got one md why Who can
give a reason why We have not got one?
! Who Is there that objects to having one
when il is inexpensive and little trouble
TO keep ? Would It not be benefit in
! the purchase and sale Of property, in
assessing, in fire department matters and
to all persons whether owners OF prop
erty or not? Being no expense to the
person who wishes to build
and no annoyance save to
register before building would
it not be in the end Il benefit TO him
and his heirs? We have seen SO many
cases IN which 4 well kept record would
be benefit at when such inquiries as
We had yesterday cone mp, we cannot
help thinking that It is sheer neglect
on the part Of the city IL not having
one and I Is disadvantage to the city
in ne small way. The simple passage
of an ordinance requiring persons who
build to register, and the OF euiug OF d
/ record is al that Is needed, aud yet the
/ populous city Of Waco with al It's thrift
/ ls,ctoo poor Or too ind herent to have
I SUCH "a .Is,,.l--