Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-06-10


were expended for cleaning and repairs.
In the year 1879 the total expenditures
were $4,000, of which $12,45O were ex-
pended for cleaning and repairs. In the
year 1880 the total expenditures were
$70,520, of which $11 $40 were for cleaning
and repairs. In the year 1881 the total
expenditures were $179,700, of which
$2S, 100 were for cleaning and repairs. In
the year 1882 the total expenditures were
1886, 1000, of which $40, $50 were for clean
ing and repairs. During the present year
up to the present time, that is, from the
first of January to the first of June, there
has been expended the sum of $370,000, OF
which 81 800 were expended for cleaning
and repairs. Making an aggregate ex-
pended for local improvements since the
year 1872 and up to the first day of the
present month, of $1,704,000 of which
5000, were expended for cleaning and
repairs in the manner indicated. These
expenditures include all local improve
ments, such as grading and macadamizing
streets, building sewers and sidewalks, and
paving streets, and in themselves Indicate
a continued and increasing current of pros
perity. The fluctuations observable in
the expenditures for local improvements
are to be attributed to ordinary causes.
The years 1875, 1876 and 1877, when the
expenditures were least, we're, as you know,
years which involved a general financial
depression, that effected the entire coun-
try, and which our city in common shared
with all other localities. During the years
1879 and 1880 matters were, to a certain
extent, in a transition state, emerging,
as the country then was, from the former
financial depression. and matters we're re-
arranging themselves, but since 1881 the
figures that l have given show a continuous
and rapid development of Improvements
which we're called for and necessitated by
the unparalleled growth of our city. The
question of the relation of the amounts
expended for repairs and cleaning streets
and sewers to the entire amount of the ex-
penditures will be in the future, as it has
undoubtedly been IN the past, matter for
your close observance, and the exercise
upon your part of that sound judgment
which this body has always evidenced in
city affairs, and has been perhaps in the
past largely due to the fact that at the
time of their inauguration many of the
Improvements were to a certain extent
experimental. But that period has finally
passed in our city, and the time has now
certainly come when the character of local
improvements will be substantial and last
ing, and the period of experimentation
has undoubtedly ceased.
UNDER THE EXPENDITURES
to which have called your attention there
have been graded and macadamized 2lS
streets, containing length of seventy-nine
miles: there have been constructed twenty
three and fve-eighths miles of sewers, and
sixty-two miles of sidewalk, and there have
been laid four miles of wooden pavement
While it is true that the original orders for
these Improvements emanate, as they
properly should, from your honorable bo-
dy, yet the ACCESSIBILITY of their Inaugural
ton, the question of their extent, the let
ting of the contracts for them, their super
vision while under construction, and their
final acceptance are controlled by the
Board of Public Works. And it therefore
seems to me that l have not overestimated
the Importance of that department. 1t
might therefore be advisable to call your
attention to the questions of reports from
that department, and as to an investiga-
ton by your honorable body as to whether
quarterly reports covering the work done
therein, the work under construction, and
the projected improvements during each
quarter would not be appropriate for your
Information! I desire to be understood
that the same argument is equally applica-
BILE to
ALL OF THE CITY DEPARTMENTS,
of whatever nature, but use the depart
ment of the Board of Public Works merely
as an illustration upon this subject. The
departments directly connected with the
receipt and disbursement of the funds of
aity Will IA
of course, equal in their importance to that
of tie board of public works, but it has
seemed to me that a rule which might be
found serviceable in that department
would unquestionably be of like service for
all. predicate this view upon the fact
that the supervision and control of all mu-
nicipal affairs originate and finally rest
with your honorable body; that, in addi-
ton to those duties, you are required to
exercise your legislative Jurisdiction; that
for those ends, and to enable a body of
the character of a common council and tbs
members of such body to exercise, as they
are required to do, their highest Judgment
in all their enactments, involving, as the
exercise Of that Judgment does, not only
knowledge o. the present condition of af-
fairs, but also of the necessary steps, Iegis-
}
should have laid before you at frequently
recurring periods exact and particular III
formation as to the precise con
dition of municipal affairs, and their con
duct in all of the several divisions of the
municipal government. T. is not and can
not be reasonably expected that member
of the common council should be as famil-
lar with the diverse and complex affairs of
the city, as the particular persons who are
charged with their execution in the differ
emf departments which the transaction of
that business requires the municipal gov
eminent to be divided into, and it is from
those departments, if at all, that the neces-
sary information can be laid before you
upon which you predicate your actions and
control of the city government. I think,
therefore, that I do not over estimate the
Importance of frequent and systematic
reports in the manner in which 1 have
indicated, for not only will they advise
each member of the council IN concise
and Ineligible form of the exact condi-
ton of things, but they will enable your
body to take such further steps as may be
necessary, or to correct any abuses which
may creep in, and guard against future
errors.