The Arizona sentinel., 1897-06-26
IT IS A FERROUS OFFICE.
Supervisors BRrdene& With Res.
 possibilities.

ing the Citizens League of Mari copa county, against Captain ". l.. George and J. T. Priest, members of the board of supervisors. E. B. Kirkland would have been joined in the defense. bat he was out of the country at the time the suit was begun little less than year ago.
 The suit was one of the results of the organization of the citizeAS' league, an aggregation of taxpayers who believed that great deal of county and municipal money was being improperly expended.
 The ground ef complaint was that MT. Priest, as member Of the
 board, had received pay amounting to S400 for experimenting the work of improvement on the Tempe road; that Captain George had received S100 for the Use of teams and
 wagons employed on the same
 work and that E. B. Kirkland had
 received a similar sum for sup erintending the construction of the Hail, though his term of office did
 not cover the whole time of thls service As soon as the propriety of these claims was questioned
 Captain George returned to the
 treasury the amount he had receiv- ed for the use of his teams.
 l Judge Baker decided that pay
 ment for the service of the defeud-
 ants was unlawful He regretted
 that it was so in this case, for the defendants had given the county
 full value for all the money they
 had received from IL. The work
 of Mr. Priest on the Tempe road
 had been valuable aitd the roal
 under his superintendence had been
 made the best in the county at II lcomparalively littie cost, since the labor had beer performed hy county
 prisoners. It was unlikely that another man could have been found
 who would have given the work the faithful attention il had recciv- cd from Mr. Priest.
 Yet the j%dge sad he could no,
 disregard the pl"in statutory de claration that nember of the
 board ofsuperviSorS cannot became
 a party to any contract with itteli
 and he must decide that the pay ment of these claisas was illegal
 If the decision had ended here Ii
 would have been of comparatively
 little importance, for the amounts involved are not large and there Is only one defendant interested. But 2 it is more far reaching. The judge said the law was equally plain that the supervisors whp allowed these |. illegal claims must be held res ponsible to the c,uniy for the amount of them. Here Wa $50> paid out, not calculating the $10i returned by Captain George. Bott he and Mir Priest. who were mem
 bcrs of the board, or either ct them n is held by the statutes for thn n amount.
 { Boards ofsupervisors are held 10 s every illegal claim allowed, say ] the decision. This Is the .arat tim = there has been a ju lieiaI utteranc = on that subject in this Territory g There are hundreds of sums pal, l out in Arizona annually for pur. S poses not contemplated in the law X though the purposes may be !aud I able and the public may be directl or indirectly benefited in mucI n larger amount than that of tn
 money expended. Yet that doe !, not make the expenditure ;lawfu i and boards of supervisors are re s quired to makes them good to tn V, treasury. Last fail the board (
 supervisors of this county appro t priated $2Q0 to lhe use of the il ' rigation congress. The apDr"pria IT ton was satisfactory to an over
 whelmiRg majority "fthe taxpayer
 and a man who wonld have object e ed to 1t would have been accuse o If being lacking an public >pjr. t
 Yet lawyers say that ;hr anp'c ID priatinn was clearlr lr urlaW'H :.n U according to ye-terday's deeik.o e the board of sup-ry,snrs. wh'c e go'ed for it, can be compelled | n make it good.
 Under this decision it l. withi II the power.of any taxpayer to brln
 suit against the members of an '' board Of supervisors to compel tn e reimbursement of unlawfnlly al