The morning call., 1892-06-23
STREET PLUNDER.

It seems to be settled that the Board Il
Supervisors Will adopt the recommendation
# the Finance Committee that a levy Of
81 per $50 on the taxable property Of San
Francisco be made TO provide expenses for
tie city government. The valuation being
$4,000 600, the tax will provide IS, 400 600
for the people at the City Hall to divide.
Of this, S453,0o0 is to go to the Street De-
partmeut.
Il is time that the people Of the city kept
their eyes on this department and this ex-
penditurp. The sum which it is proposed
to allow Mr. GiNeran TO spend does not by
any means represent the whole amount Of
money which tie streets cost the owners of
lots adjacent 1t is reckoned that a sum
exceeding S1,5G0O00 is paid every year for
paving and repairing, sewering, guttering
and other work done on tile streets by order
C the Board Of Supervisors over and above
The S43. 000 paid By the city. a part Of this
is paid TO a newspaper, which nobody sees,
for advertising the various jobs, and as one
municipal administration after another in
ssts On maintaining the monopoly in Ques-
tion, Il IS supposed that the paper does not
get it all, but has to divide with the en-
plOyes at tie City Hall
The improvements which thus cost citi-
zeus in direct taxes, assessments and con-
tractors bills, sum Of nearly two millions
a year. are not always or even generally
necessary or desirable. The modus
operandi is very simple. Some block is
chosen which the Street Department pro-
poses to pave at the expense Of tie residents
Of the block. When the Street Committee
approves The recommendation Of the de-
70 10 IF
yisors, who rarely if ever 20 back on their
own committee. As soon as the res dents
Of the blCck hear Of it they 60 to the Street
Department to protest against an improve
meDt which they do not want and cannot af-
ford. They are generally treated with rude
ness and as persons who object to the march
Of public Improvement. They are told that
they have their recourse; If a majority of
them join in protest the order Will be sus-
pended for six months. At the end of six
months the work viii 90 on, and they must
pay for it whether they can afford il or not.
In this way paving jobs and grading jobs
and other jobs are going on ali over the city,
and every day one hears of some poor man
with large family OF some widow VITO has
been improved cut q his or her little prop
eEty IN order to furnish work 10 the PAYERS
Of the Street Department or to enable the
paving comp anies to pay dividends. Is not
this an outrageous business to be going
on I'D q city which is supposed to be self
governing? Things were bad enough under
AshwoTth; they are, II possible, worse
under Giileran, and there seems to be no
remedy. over in the Mission regular sys-
TEN Of spoliation has been iraugurated.
People who thought they owned little
home for their old age find that the Street
Department, with the authority OF the
Supervisors, has decided on a system
Of street Improvements which will
impose on that home a mortgage
Of half its assessed yalue-the limit
OF tile laY-and practically eViets the
owner as an Irish landlord evicts a tenant
In some places tue paving jobs are never
ending a couple Of years ago the Street
Department thought it would be a good idea
10 give the boys a job at maeadamizing a
block in the Western Addition. The work
was done and the property paid for
It, Twenty months afterwaTd the depart
meut reviewed its action. and decided that
that particular block ought to be paved with
asphalt or Belgian blocks; the property
owners protested; and the protest took the
usual course. At the expiration of the six
months probably the same " boys tore up
the macadam they had laid twenty months
before, and are now laying basait blocks.
Perhaps in year or two the blocks will be
taken up in their turn, and the poultice laid
In its place.
is not this pretty state of things?