The San Francisco call., 1898-04-05
Job to Repair Third Street Blum en Awarded to
 Finn & Treacy.
Concrete Specifications for Paw
 ing Market Street, From Second to Fifth.
S supervisors Award the Contract to 3. the City Street Improvement Com
 pany, Price S15,OoO.

Yesterday was a field day for jobs
 in the Board of Supervisors. The Ala
 mo Square work was awarded to J. J. ;Dowling at the figures of the private
 arrangement" The work was done so
 long ago that the grass Is growing over the curbs and the Supervisors now are simply awarding a contract in order
 to allow the contractor to get his money from the public treasury. No mention was made yesterday in the board of Y. Windrem's bid which was lower than
 Dowling's. The trick by which the Street Committee threw out the low
 bid was not denounced. In discussing
 the matter of the work Alamo
 Square Supervisor Britt asserted that
 the original contract was entered into on behalf of the city by the Superin-
 tendent of Streets. Mr Ambrose, the
 Superintendent, distinctly denies that he had anything to do with the letting of the contract. He asserts that he did
 not know that any arrar cement had
 been made to do the work until he saw Dowling's men at work on the job.
 Here is n case of fiat cOmara-
 dictiOn. Supervisor Britt says that the superintendent of Streets let this contract and . rhe says he did not. Let Ihe Grand .Bury in- quire whether any contract was made, and if one was made who entered into it on
 behalf of the city.
 The contract for repairing Third street, between Mission and Howard, went to Finn &, Treacy for s21OO J. J. Bowling at first proposed to do the work for S950, but he was allowed to
 pull out his bid for that sum and the board instead of inviting new propo- sals awarded the contract to the next lowest bidder. Dowlings bid of $950 was a fair estimate of the value of the work. and material required for the re- pairs. The space to be repaired was in spected and measured by an expert en- 'ployed by The Cali. DoWling's lame
 statement which was accepted yester- day by the board to the effect that he bid for the work under a misapprehen-
 sion of the specifications is not borne
 out by the palpable facts. He made his calculations exactly on tLe line of the
 specifications and even offered s75 for
 ' the conclusion that Dowling's bid on the Third-street work was put in to head off low bidders. Had there been a bid lower than Dowling's or an inter- loping bid between the figures of DoWl- ing and those of Finn & Treacy a way
 would have been found to reject all the bids. The Third-StTeet job is clumsy and coarse-simply raw all the way
 through. In view of The Calls ex- posture of the jo1 it is doubtful whether the contract will be signed. It is said : that Treacy, who has political aspira-
 tionS. is already sick of it.
 .. The contract for paving Market . street from Second to Fifth with bit :;un.inous rock was yesterday awarded to the City Street Improvement Com :pany The contractor agrees to do the work for $15,000 and the old material. The Calls expert figures the old ma .:terial to be worth $5000. It is said that J. w. Mcdonald, the Fire Commis- ..sioner. who is at the head of the City Street Improvement Company, intends to do a star piece of work on Market street. The public eye will be