The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1899-08-30

Bird Island Counted Out OF
the R6nViII6 County
Scat Fight.
An Olivia Paper Refused the
First Publication Of
the Notice.

Bird Island was knocked out in
the second round of the Renville
county seat contest. The Knockout
was complete for the time being. It
did not come from the Olivia boom
ers or Renville commissioners, but
from the attorney general of Mime
sofa. The latter handed down an
opinion adverse to Bird Island, the
| commissioners abided by the opin-
ion by a vote of to 0, and imnedi-
ately after this was done at ten
clock Saturday morning the Olivia
boomers fled their petition con-
tanning 3.l5l names, praying that
the county seat of said county be
changed to the village of Olivia.
Promptly Auditor Brooks issued
his notices calling meeting of the
commissioners for one clock p. M,
Friday, Sept. 10Th, to consider and
determine as to the genuineness of
the signatures to said petition, and
as to the number of legal voters of
said county whose genuine sigma
lures were attached thereto. within
60 days preceding the filing of such
petition.
Bird Island was knocked out
through the wanton carelessness of
an Olivia paper. The law requires
that the notice Of the county auditor
calling special meeting of the COM
missiohers to consider county seat
removal petitions shall be published
in every paper in the county at least
two weeks before the date of meet
ing of the commissioners The no.
tice was handed to Kelsey of the
Olivia Times in plenty of time to be
published in his paper for two
weeks prior to the date of the meet
ing, but Kelsey omitted the notice
the first week, and while he accept
ed the money for two publications,
when the Olivia attorneys raised
the point that only the one publica-
tion had been made in the Kelsey
paper. Kelsey appeared before the
board and swore to the fact on which
he had accepted double pay. This
question was then submitted to the
county attorney, who is really an
Olivia boomer, and the attorney
submitted the same to the attorney
general with the instruction to wire
his decision. This decision was
arrived at late Friday afternoon and
telegraphed to Beaver Falls, and
hence the commissioners had moth
ing to do but to declare that Bird
Island was mot in it. and that
they were ready to determine
whether Olivia was Sin it,
Attorney General Douglas opin-
ion was to the effect that the notice
not having been published the re-
quired number of times in the Olivia
paper, the commissioners could not
act on the petition.
The effect of the decision and the
commissioners action will probably
throw the matter in the district and
Supreme Courts as it is extremely
probable that the Bird Island boom
ers will apply for a mandamus COM
pelling the commissioners to issue a
call for an election on their petition
which they counted was legal, Kel-
sey of the Olivia paper having re-
fused publication the first week. If
this action is taken it will be a long
time before vote is reached.
It is estimated that the fight up
to date has cost Olivia and Bird Is
land s., 900 each. It need only be
said that each petition circulator re-
ceived from $2 to IS for his work;
that each team cost from 81 to IS,
and that there were from two to
five petition circulators and teams
in each township. The fees of eel
Iebrated attorneys run into thous-