The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1901-05-17
A LIVELY
SESSION
Meeting Of Auditors In
Cleveland.
WARM DISCUSSIONS
They Are Brought Out While
Auditors Try to Appraise
the Nickel Plate
Road.


Cleveland. May 16.-The request ol
Mayor Tom L. Johnson, which was
made Wednesday at meeting of the
auditors, convened to appraise the N
Y, Z. & st. l.. railroad, to summon be
fore them the officers of the railroad
and examine the report returned by the
railroad of it's taxable property, was
denied. The question was put to a vote
on n motion by Auditor Craig, and sec
onded by George Fl. Lewis, of Lorain
county. On the ballot which was
taken Auditors Craig, Lewis and John
Beattie, of Huron county, voted in ia
vor of so doing. There were nine OF
the eleven auditors present at the
time. and those voting in the negative
were John r. Gallagher. of Erie county
S. F. DeWolf. Of Huron county; e. d.
Hartwell, of Lake county; 8. j. Hirt,
of Sandusky county; Allen Bybee, OF
Paulding county and B. F. Leopold,
deputy auditor of Putnam county, rep
resenting Auditor l.. N. Weide.
The mayor claimed that the report
of the road which was presented to the
-auditors by Attorney John Fl. Clarke.
solicitor of the railroad company, was
not true report of the taxable
PROPERTY OF THE ROAD.
The report presented. Mr.. Clarke
said. had been prepared by men thor
| oughly competent in such work, was
sworn to by the proper officials of the
road, and placed the valuation of the
road at the same figure for which 1t
was valued year ago, namely, $4,000
! per mile.
In discussing the report, Mr. Clarke
made the rather startling statement
that the more the right of way costs
railroad, the less valuable is that
right of way. He spoke of this in con
nection with his argument that the
idea that railroad property had in the
past been improperly valued was wrong
and that at the present time there was
no new feature to be considered in
appraising railroad property. and that
its present valuation was on a 60 per
cent basis, when the consequential
damages which went with every right
OF way trough a city was considered.
lie declared that no Improvements
had been made on the road during ths
year, and that in comparison with other
roads 1T was more highly taxed, and
pointed to the country through which
the line of the road extended, that in
this state there were no large cities
on it except this city, and should the
mayor carry out his plans of forcing
the road to build overhead crossings.
these would cost more than the road
itself.
Mr. Clarke concluded by saying:
What 1t cost to acquire the right of
way through the city was also not a.
proper basis for estimating the value
for taxation. A very large part of the
cost of procuring a right Of way for A
railroad lie paid for damages to adjacent
property, springing from fire and divi
sion of pieces of property. The ele
ment springing from division is often
fanciful In reality, but in appropriation
proceedings is usually very large. But
the money paid for such collateral dam
ages does not bring to the company
any asset
THAT SHOULD BE TAXED,
but 1t Is liability that is measured
every year by thousands of dollars paid
in fire and stock claims"
In prefacing his request for time to
examine the report which had Just been
presented to the auditors, the mayor
made the statement that in his belief
the statutes did not provide or stipu.
late that railroad property should be
taxed by any other system than that
OF other property. Turning to Mr..
Clarke, he asked II the statement were
not correct.