Los Angeles daily herald., 1886-12-05
Voters, Are You A sleep, or Simply
Dreaming.


Voters, Are You a sleep, or Simply
Dreaming.
EDITOR HERALD:-While l entertain
the kindest feelings towards our present
city officials and do not hold the slight.
est malice towards single member
thereof, yet, as an humble citizen, feel
ing the deepest interest in the future
prosperity of this beautiful. thriving
city, claim it to be the duty of every
public spirited citizen, to lend helping
hand, and give expression of opinioa as
to such public affairs as may prove
benefit to the public's good. And to this
end claim that the public acts of our
present City Council upon many matters
of vital interest to the general public
are entitled to criticism, and can be
remedied only by changing the balance
of power from their hands into that of
the wide-awake, clear headed, energetic
and thorough business men placed upon
the Democratic ticket, asking for your
vote tomorrow, not because they are
Democrats. but because continuation
of past bad financiering would be disas-
trous to the public good. While columns
could be written detailing blunders and
a waste of public monies, it may suffice
to call attention to few items of which
the public are somewhat familiar. 1
protested publicly from the beginning
on their attempt to build city hall ON
the cramped space on Second and
Spring (only bit for choice business
house,. l went so far in this matter as
to lay before them in writing las the
representative of st. Vincent College,
without commission to mel the entire
block of 1900 front feet with that mag.
niicent building, that would have an
swered their purpose for city hall for
some years, between Sixth and Seventh,
Fort and Hill (worth to- day quarter of
million dollars), in exchange for their
l20 feet above, or would sell them st.
Vincent block 800, 900. and this too
within the past eight months. What is
theirs worth to-day? We shall see in a
few days, for they have advertised it for
sale on certain day for not less than
Sl20, 900, for the "hole." When they
attempted to ornament this hole with a
building hey awakened to the fact that
they had mo funds to build with" One
is reported as having said "We
have a white elephant;" and another as
saying, ''To tell you the truth, l did not
know whether we had any money or
not" Then what did they do? Buy
$50 feet ON Fort street for $50, 900.
and paid for it in full betore they knew
whether they could realize Sl20, 900 for |
the other-there is a possibility of hav. |
ing second "White Elephant"
With reference to the levee to pro-
tect our city, they waited all through the |
past Spring and Summer and now that |
the floods will soon be upon us, an &C.
tive stir is made and $4,000 appropri-
ated by the city to be Just in place to be
carried off by the first rise of the river,
and should we have the same flood we
had in February, 1884, 100000 would
not pay the damage between the end of
Also street, via Agricultural Park to
Ballona, as the channel is now fully laid
open for it at the first point. Again;
why do they wait until the rainy season
COpoS, Wuou Jul StIectS AOOh duu chiCh
like much neglected pig pen, to the
disgust of crowded city, with strang-
ers? Why not haul into the streets the
Of asphaltum that surround
us?
Again-We have our city filled with
strangers ready to invest and our
banks filled with their money,
in addition to our home capital
lists. Our Council have assessed
us 81. 60 tax to the 500, on eighteen and
and half millions. can call your at
tention to hundreds of instances where
large properties are not assessed at one.
fifth of the actual cash value, when
many small homes are assessed full price.
Without affecting the latter. this eighteen
and half should be raised to sixty mil
lions, thereby reducing the $l.60 tax to
SO cents to raise the same total for taxes.
This saving of the ST. go tax on the 500
would make money more plenty and cas-
ier on the borrower, for now, when the
lender loans, he wants so much net, add
ing the tax, whether much or little, to
the interest. Voters, lay aside your
personal spite, if you have any; appeal
to your reason; come to the polls Mon.
day; elect Mr.. Workman as Mayor, for
he has no bank to consume all his time
except to fine q few drunkards. And
also change the power of the Council to
the hands of live Democrats, and we
will have 100, 900 population before you
can realize it. JNo. F. HUMPHREYS,