The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1893-03-16
TO OUR OWN PEOPLE.

Under the late amendment to the Con-
stitution, loans made by cities may be for
forty instead of twenty years.
Sacramento has certain imperative
needs to be met that she has not the
means in hand to meet. Her business
creasing population demand that they
be supplemented. She is in precisely
the condition of the business man with
good trade, but in need of more capital
with which to promote its expansion.
Our security is ample for every cent we
may wish to borrow.
Four hundred thousand dollars will be
needed to carry out what must be done if
this city is to keep pace with
other advances. We want a sewer
and sewage disposal system with
abandonment of cesspools, that will
cost Sl75,000;' for tributary sewers and
drains to supplement the new sewage dis
posal system, $4,000; for crematory for
disposition of garbage and abandonment
utterly of the dumping system, $1,000;
for expenses of filling low lots where it is
necessary for the city to proceed, and
thereafter recover from the owners, SlO.-
600; for a general street Improvement
fund not less than 100000; for new city
hall, $4,000, plus the sale value of the
present city hall and prison; for re-
IL, Il
$4,000; for a reserve fund to be used
during period of not less than three
years in promotion of industrial invita-
ton, harbor improvements, park and
boulevard improvements, or any of them,
$4,000.
But can the city afford this invest
ment? Easier far than not to make it.
For at five per cent. per annum, for forty
years, it wilrbe good one. The interest
on the whole sum will be per year $40, 900;
the sinking fund to discharge the princi-
pal in forty years will be $4,000 a year;
total, $4,000 per annum. In other words,
at an expenditure of $4,000 year we
can secure within twenty months works
which will be worth ten times $4,000 a
year to the city,Ieven if it be admitted,
that to operate chemical sewage system
and garbage disposal system will cost
the city as much or more than we have.
1t costs for the sewage discharge sys-
tenn we now have 81, 900 year alone; the
householders now pay in self-imposed
taxation to the scavengers and cleansers
of vaults some $500 a month or $4,000
$ year, while a garbage crematory, in
Guiding cost of carriage to it, can be OPP
Grated for that sum, since it yields
profit on the ash.
And here it is interesting to note that
under law just passed it is a crime. after
this month. to dump or burn garbage
within city limits or within quarter of a
mile of any city limits, so that as there is
TO be at once longer haul imposed upon
the scavengers, we must expect immedi-
ate advances in their charges. as they
must fluid new dumping-grounds, and
that on land that is of the highest acreage
value OF any in the State outside OF
city bounds. But under the new law.
garbage may be disposed of in crema-
tory within city limits under direction of
Board of Health.
This expenditure then of SSd, 900 a year
can be made by this city without any
distress whatever. The entire sum can
be saved by increase of revenues to be
suggested and in several economies that
can be named if necessary. But suppos-
ing only one-half the amount can be
saved by such economies: then with the
$4,000 added to the present cost of
operating the sewage disposal system in
order to operate that new system at $685.
600 a year, and the simple business
proposition remains, will not the invest
ment pay us frorI the moment of in
auguration five times the interest and
sinking fund cost, and when completed
ten times its cost, or S300,000 a year if
cash only is considered? PROFESSIONALLY
that can be shown without fear of sue
cessful refutation.
Unjust be borne in mind that there is