Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-04-03
Seventh Street Improvement and the City

rights of any class of its citizens.
Seventh Street Improvement and the City
Council.
To the Editor of the Globe:
The city council still fingers about the Sey-
enth street improvement matter and the Day.
toms Bluff people are beginning to despair of
speedy action on the part of that body unless
more knowledge and efficiency are shown next
Tuesday night than have been apparent on the
occasion of the last two regular meetings of
the body.
Although the state law requires the city
council to establish the permanent grade'
within reasonable time and without unnec-
cessary delay, the aldermen seem to be either
ignorant of this law as regardless of it, acting
as if the establishing of this grade were an or
binary matter to be dawdled over. Those who
do not like the law should have defeated the
passage of the bill for it when before the leg.
islature, not attempt to ignore or nullify il
now. Being the law of the land it shonld be
regarded and obeyed by all auhom it concerns.
When the Board of Public Works on JAN
| uary II reported satisfactory grade the dam
| age releases and detailed engineering estimate
should have been called for then (if deemed an
essential preliminary to the establishment of
q grade) in order that they might have been
procured whilst the official public notice of
proposed change of grade was running its
course in the newspaper, but the releases were
| not asked for till February 81, and the engi-
neerlng estimates not till March 81, on which
last date Alderman Otis suddenly awoke to
the necessity of facts and Of the dangers at.
tending hasty action.
Alderman Starkey our only spokesman in
tt,na al, g. 20 - =.
| OF the speedy beginning of this work, but he
is no match for those astute lawyers, Cornish
and Otis, who evidently know when it is good
policy to shut their eyes so that they cannot
| see either statute or facts, and whose exper-
fence in pleading gives them facility in pre-.
senting only a portion of the truth, and max
ing that portion very impressive to their
| hearers.
Now to be more specific, Alderman
was such law as the one referred to, or he
did not. fine did, he unfairly left out an i'm.
portant factor, and if he did not he was ig-
norant of the full bearings of the subject. He
affected to fear that were the work commenced
those locally interested would try next winter
to get the legislature to saddle the whole cost
on the city at large. Any one referring to the
act will see that it authorizes the issue of
$4,000 only in bonds for this Pha-
/ D.
Does any reasonable man think that
our upper. town people would be so weak and
unintiuential that they could not successfully
lobby ageinst the repeal of such well
guarded law as ours is, even il we of DAY ton 8
Bluff were bent on mischief?
Mr.. Otis further stated that the board
estimate of damages to be met was only
S2,1OO, whilst professional friend told him
that at least S25, GOO would be required Now
the board first reported $1,000, which was for
the estimated cost of moving buildings
affected by the grade providing new
foundations for them, not reckon.
ing earthwork excavation, as the pre-
sumption was that the owners would not
charge the city anything for the-d which
the latter would use for filling in the bottom,
provided that their lots were so graded In con-
nection with adjoining property as to be left
as accessible and in as good shape as before
| The council, however, wanted .fuU damages
| given, when the board reported $4,000 to
cover estimated charges as well.
At the close of the meeting of the 18th of
March, the understanding about the whole
matter was that the committee on streets and
the city attorney were satisfied with the
| releases furnished, and that but for the unex-
pected absence of the latter official the grade
would have been adopted the same evening.
1t can be imagined therefore that the unex-
pected result of the last meeting was like
bomb shell to all Of us concerned, and indeed
| the intelligent citizens generally were sur
prised. Mr.. Cornish, it seems from his own
statement, had, at the eleventh hour, been
reading over the releases rather critically, and
hadfound three very faulty ones. The defect in
| one of these could have been cured on the spot
had he called for its doing. Another, though
! defective, was for an insignificant piece OF
ground. The last was all right, as the stipu
lation or condition was that this very grade
now before the council should be adopted-the
city attorney well knew this once, but in the
multiplicity of his official affairs must have
forgotten it. As the release matter now
stands only certain part of the land on the
| divide by Hope and Margaret streets remains
unreleased Except in. Phalen's creek bottom,
where The necessary ground for the base of
slopes should be condemned), and the city
attorney and committee on streets being of
opinion that we did not need them all, the
release objections can drop out of 81 zht.
No factions opposition was made to the
establishment of new grade for LAFAYETTE
avenue, nor any outcryi againstthe spending
for a road to the Pillow works half mile Ion.
ger than ours, and now the immense mound
gradually creeps across Trout Brook valley,
whilst the very first STEP OF establishing a
grade has not vet been taken in the ca Sc of
Phalen's creek.
st. Paul has three roads to the country
which take precedence of all 9TH
ers, viz: Across the Mississippi
river by Fort Smelling to Hennepin
county; across the same river by West st.
Paul to Dakota county, and across Phalen's
creek by Dayton's Bluff to Washington
county. The last of these is the best travelled
and most important OF the three, but The only
public aid it has ever received has been the
promise of $4,000, whilst the Fl. Smelling
bridge received $4,000 and the old bridge to
West st. Paul many myriads OF dollars. In
addition the naners state that the connniI