Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1898-05-12
THURSDAY. MAY IL. 1898
MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENT.

the esthetic tastes can be INDUCED.
The practical and necessary come SO
near to the ideal and ornamental, the
beautiful and consequently desirable,
that contention arises and so the bat
tie still goes on, and no doubt will con-
tinue to the end of time. Meanwhile
wha. our pocket books can afford buys
first the necessaries OF life, second the
conveniencies and third the elegancies
and the beautiful things that may be
said to make life worth living.
A city cannot long neglect the con-
yeniencies and the ornamental any
more than an individual without seri-
GUS injury.
We might do without paved streets,
water works, electric lights in our
streets, paid fire department. and our
parks might still be COW pastures, and
the hard-headed argument $50 called
that no debt should be contracted and
the tax levy kept very low, might have
prevented all these Improvements.
Thanks to our public spirited citizens,
however, we now have all of these, al
SO quite a debt, but when compared
with other Ohio cities we can see that
the debt is not out of proportion and
il properly handled can be easily TAX
en- care of.
The trouble with the City Council
has always been that they have not
had the money to do just the right
thing, not that they did not want te
clean the streets more thoroughly
They saw the desirability and indeed
necessity of doing more in this line
but the greater necessities of the city't
thoroughfares, took all the money be
fore the question of better cles ming
and beautifying of the highways could
be reached.
Just before left the Council hac
the purpose to try and put in opera
tion a provision of the statutes of Ohio
relating to cleaning the streets (Sec
aSO7 and following sections) Briefly
stated, this would require a petition tt
be signed by two-thirds of the owners
of property on any given street, pro
posed to be cleaned and swept for thu
coming year. After this is duly signed
it is presented to the council and the!
appoint two of the petitioners who to
gether with the City Engineer, consti
tute a board or commission to contrac
for the work and to supervise and SCI
that it is properly done, serving with
out pay. The expense of the cleaning
and sweeping is made lien on th'
lots on both sides of the whole stree
at so much per front foot. 1t is placed
on the tax duplicate and collected lik,
any other assessment. Away
thought that if this could be once
started, it would be go slight tax OF
the lot owners, that it would prove {
very popular method Of kesrr!ng ou'
seFss!s fissn and sprink!ed. tried tt
get bids from parties who though
would probably like to do such work
but could never get any figures from
them. 1t was necessary to start ou
with some definite statement as Il
what it would cost the land owners
for they would not be likely to sign pc
tition of that kind unless they first hac
definite idea Of what it was going Il
cost them. You see the beauty OF thi
method would be that each stree
would take care of itself and the cit.
treasury would be left intact, SO far a
the expense OF the cleaning and sprink
ling is concerned, for that rarticula
street,
CARE OF SIDEWALKS
The origin of our system of layin
sidewalks in this city, no man can tel
1t is like "Topsy," it growed. In fac
it has been the absence of system
Every man has built his sidewalk I
suit himself Whatever of regulatio
the city has provided has in most case
been ignored and the lot owner ha
gone on according to "his own swee
will' to lay it to suit himself. Will
we are SO very careful that the stree
pavement shall have an excavation {
one foot and be filed back with eigf
inches of gravel and sand, the sid
walks of the city have been left to
laid on an inch of sand, often tt
cheapest kind of sand, not much bett'
than loan, SO that when the W,
weather comes on there being no dep,
of gravel under the brick TO take Il
water down out of the way, it gene
ally squashes up onto your cloth
when you step on brick, laid in tn
way. In order to remedy this defect
sidewalk laying, and at the same tin
provide an officer whose duty it shou
be to supervise the construction al
repair of sidewalks, introduced I
ordinance providing for the appoir
ment by the Street Commissioner OF
Sidewalk Inspector, whose duties wei
1st. To supervise the construction
new sidewalks, ....
I'd. To see that all service boxes I
natural gas. artificial gas and wat