The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1897-12-11

4
president of the department of taxes
and assessments. Here again the may
or controls three-fifths of the board.
This board makes the annual budget
of the amounts required by the various
| departments of the city. The NUM-
cipal assembly may reduce any of the
appropriations so fixed, but may not
increase any of the amounts or insert
any new items. The mayor has power
to veto any reductions. and, unless
such veto is over-ridden by a five-sixths
veto of the municipal assembly, the
amount fixed by the board of estimate
and apportionment will stand as part
of the budget
These are the most important exc
cutive boards, but they do not begin
to cover the power vested in the mayor.
In the department of finance, the con-
troller. or auditor. is elected, but the
chamberlain, or treasurer, Is appointed
by the mayor, as are two commission
ers of accounts who periodically ex-
| anime the receipts and disbursements
as shown in the. offices of the control
| Ter and chamberlain and report the
| financial condition to the mayor. The
| law department is under the control
of the corporation counsel, appointed
| by the mayor. The police commission
ers, fire commissioners, and art COM
missioners are appointed by him. In
the department of taxes and assess
ments he appoints the president and
| four commissioners.
| In the department of education the
mayor appoints the 81 members of the
school board for Manhattan and Bronx,
As for Brooklyn, and nine each for
Richmond and Queens. He appoints
three commissioners of public build
ings, three health commissioners, three
commissioners of docks, three commits
sioners of public charities, one commits
sioner of correction, three civil-service
commissioners, six commissioners Of
municipal statistics and the chief of
the bureau, one commissioner Of jur-
ors for Manhattan and Bronx, and the
sealers and inspectors of weights and
measures. In the judicial department
seven justices Of the municipal court,
"a city magistrates, ten justices of the
court of special sessions, and 63 mar
shals are appointed by the mayor.
1t is evident from this brief review
of the mayors power of appointment
that his power is more autocratic than
that ever before exercised by the chief
executive officer of any city. His pow
er of removal is as absolute and un-
qualified as that of appointment. He
may remove even the elective borough
presidents, but in this case his action
must be approved by the governor of
| the State. He has also veto power
on all acts of the municipal assembly,
and a two-thirds vote of both houses
is necessary to pass a measure over
his veto, unless it be measure involv-
| ing the expenditure of money, the crea
| tiOn of debt, the levying of an as
sessment, or the granting Of fran
chise, when five-sixths vote is neces-
| sary. Under the constitution the may
Or has also the unusual power of a
| qualified veto on acts of the State
| legislature relating to the city. Such
autocratic powers, when exercised by
an ideal mayor, would unquestionably
secure good government, but city gov
ernment is a practical question and
not one of abstract theory, and it will
be interesting to observe how Mayor
Van Wyck, owing his nomination and
election to Tammany Hall, will exer-
else these powers.
| A portion of the paper on Parks and
Fairgrounds" by Andrew Adams is as
| follows:
There are thousands of children in
our crowded cities,-the cities of brick
blocks, brick sidewalks, paved streets,
whose vision of sky is limited by the
long line of coping at the tops of the
buildings; to whom the only semblance
of the sound of rustling leaves is the
dry whistle of the wind through the
telephone wires. Occasionally of a
Sunday they have walked with some
older person to the residential streets
and gazed at green grass through the
iron bars of fences. These are not
extreme cases. The instances are con-
firmed by the testimony of men and
women who have Stunned it" in some
of our large cities.
Many of the cities of the United
States, and especially those of the
East, and of Great Britain and Europe
as we'll, are spending large sums from
2 their park appropriations, for play
iCOntir.ued on Second Page)