Waterbury evening Democrat., 1894-09-19
LETTERS FROM THEPEoPLE
Taxpayer Objects to the seIeetme
 Exceeding the Representations,

Taxpayer Objects to the ssIectmen Exceeding the Appropriations.
 To the Editor of the DEMOCRAT:
 notice of a recent letter in your yalu- able paper. calling upon the selectmen for the annual town report for the past wear. to be published ten days before the next october local elections has prompted care tul inquiry on the part of taxpayers into town affairs. A good many facts have been gleaned on brief investigation, which seem to me very grave object of criti- cism, but nothing like what could be learned of town affairs if full report was published and spread before the public eye. It Is noticed that in a recent interview printed in local paper, (the American,) Mir Pinney, first select man. ssys that in a number of denart- ments the annual appropriations fixed and adorted at the town meeting last winter have been exceeded and refers to the statutes. implying that the statutes iusti- ned the excess. People who pay taxes wllt object to that sort of fortification for the selectman to hide behind. They will say when the town meeting solemnly pro- vides certain sums of money to be ex
 pended for the several departments of town affairs and necessity requires more. the selectmen are in duty bound to call ~~"A tue IHctS to the tax payers and asA for further appropriations. It would be a farce on public bnsiness after meeting of two or three thousand citizens rightfully adjudging that would spend certain sums of money for public affairs under the township system. create an office and agent to disburse it, such as selectman. and then to permit this officer to increase the appropriation at his own will. "-
 The office of first selectman has crown 10 De somewhat of an autocratic office in this town and has been exercised in the past with a sublime impudence and ap parent disregard to tax money and taT- pay CTS and in an arbitrary manner that almost takes ones breath away. It was thought after the several numerousIy at tended and spirited town meetings held last winter that the taxpayers had set the pace and marked out the line for the selectmen to tread, but it is now admitted that they have travelled wide of the mark. when the report comes we shall know how much and 1t Is not at all likely that the same oihcers will be continued in office until there shall have been a full account or the stewardship. It is thought by many that there has been too much politi- cal juggling in the office of selectman of late years, that too much strategy has been employed to perpetuate the occupants in office. The disbursement of SIPS, 900 of puoilc funds by one individual or by three Is powerful engine to hedge around ones political and official castle. It must be Salferino or a Sedan to make the in cumbent realize the effects of Waterloo. and that's what the taxpayers have got on hand just now. If the attack is made and the fortress is to be stormed, if the para pets are to be mounted, the breastworks broken and the square trampled there must be sturdy fighting all along the line well formulated plans and consolide ton of forces, good officers on the staff and line. Let the columns march!