The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-12-03
STREET PAYING.
A Strong Argument for a Change in the
 Way of Paying for It.

Strong Argument Tor ShanSe th 'ho
 Way of Paying for It.
 To the Editor of the Journal and Courier:
 The level assessment plan for street paving seems to be gaining in popular favor and there are many good and substantial reasons why every taxpayer should give the present agitation of the subject more than passing notice.
 We have miles of streets that will sooner or later come under the order for paving and the question of kind and quality will continue to be the bone of contention. The manifest injustice of recent assessments and the indigna- tion aroused among property owners would indicate that a general plan of equal taxation would prove the only solution of the problem. The rate per linear foot should be sufficient to pre- vent land boomers in the suburbs from working "a pulp on the powers and prematurely incurring paving debts, and at the same time not so great as the outrageous asphalt swindle of re- cent date. No public-spirited citizen hopes to cast the whole burden of ex- pense for street paving entirely upon the city and l cannot conceive how any reasonable person can object to a reas- ohaple charge for pavement in front or ms property that must improve the surroundings and enhance the value to certain extent unless the cost is out of proportion to the benefit. I cannot comprehend the situation or agree with our City fathers ubo
 den Street with five or six inches of crushed stone and call it repairing with out cost 10 abutting property, because repairing IS paid for from the general tax, A five-inch crushed stone harden- Ing IS pavement in every sense of the term-stands and serves for that pur- pose. Again, Street B needs attention. It is ordered to be paved. (Evidently B street has lost its pulp. We'll B street must be paved and it is a good street upon which to experiment. We will give the patient and long suffering residents of B street something nice. new, hygienic, sanitary and slippery. Never mind the cost Pavements are paid for by the property fronting on said street and the street railroads Off 1 perchance those much abused corpora tons have charter right of way ! through that thoroughfare) To be sure, we must have an up-to- date pave ment here, never mind if 1t does come high. It wont cost the city anything. as abutting property and railroads are 1 assessed nearly enough to cover the whole bill. But stop a little. Do not these same property owners perform their whole duty before the tax collec- 1 tor and the tune of twenty-four mills is 1 still ringing in their ears? Have they not paid into the city treasury their l proportionate share of the tithes and is there any plausible reason why they 1 should indirectly through the general tax, harden Street A with a fve-inch pavement, or pave it with a five-inch hardening, as you please to call it? | Distinction without difference.
 | In some of our streets we had a stan- dard fourteen-inch pavement that has been removed for an improved CD ar | ticle That pavement had been paid for l by the property owners according to the law of assessments. Had they no right or title to that pavement that cost much money? Possibly not. Admitting that they had not, was the city of New Haven justified in removing this pave ment-laid on a magnificent founda- l tion of from fourteen to twenty inches | that would have lasted to all eternity had the surface been cared for, and | placing it on other streets that needed l hardening-fve inches deep? Was the city justified in giving to the Octopus I Asphalt company our fourteen to twen- | ty inches of pavement for nothing, or ! all they wanted of it, and allowing them to replace it with one of about six ! inches? And where can excuse be | found for dumping hundreds of loads l on to the flats of West river to fill up