The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1901-05-13
BRIDCED over.
Plank Road Difficulty Tenn
porarily Settled at a Con-
ference Last Satur-
day.
FREEHOLDERS BLAMED FOR DELAY
Trolley Co. to Complete Re-
pairs and Maintain Road
While Counties Oper-
ate Bridges.
FREEHOLDERS BLAMED FOR DELAY

President E. F. c. Young of the Plank
Road Company said this morning in refer.
ence to the differences between the Free
holders of Hudson and Essex counties
in reference to the opening OF the road
I'VE have had a conference and We
stand where we did so far as our COM
pany is concerned. We are ready to stand
beside the agreement we made and it
now rests with the officials of the county
to perform their part
The Board of Trade and Manufacturers
Committee of Newark are much worked
up over the fact that the Plank Road
Company has reached a settlement tenn
porarily of the trouble between the coun-
ties of Hudson and Essex concerning the
closing of the road.
The settlement took place at con-
ference held on Saturday afternoon at
which were Director MCGOWAN and Coun-
ty Counsel Mum of Essex, County Coun-
sci Griffin of Hudson and President E. f.
c. Young and Spencer Weart. of the troll
ley company. The agreement was not
put into writing, but seemed to be gener-
ally understood and agreed to. In effect
the proposition is that the trolley COM
pany is to complete the repairs to the
Z
tween the bridges for year, while the
Passaic bridge is to be operated by Essex
and the Hackensack bridge by Hudson
county. Essex, by maintaining the Pas
sale bridge, does not formally relieve
Hudson from its responsibility for share
of the expense, and all questions of ad-
justment of cost of maintenance and ae-
quirement of title to the property rights
of the trolley company in the road and
bridges are left to be settled within the
year. without affecting or altering the
rights of any of the interests at stake
County Counsel Mum said yesterday
that efforts were made to secure a con-
ference with the trolley road officials on
Friday, prior to the meeting of the joint
Board of Trade and Manufacturers Com
mittee. and yesterdays agreement was
simply a reaffirmation of the agreement
made between the freeholders and the
trolley company a month ago. This agree
ment, he asserted was absolute at that
time, and he had never had any doubt
that il would be lived up to.
Ex-senator G. W. Ketcham of Newark
and a member of the Committee of the
Board of Trade was incredulous when he
heard of it. "It sounds fishy," was his
comment, land I shall take it with a
grain of salt until see some proof of the
sincerity of the county officials 1t is
very strange, to me at least, that after
so much trouble and discussion the whole
thing could be arranged SO easily and
quickly as soon as legal proceedings were
rhreatened to compel the county officials
to do their duty.
81 hope that it is true that the an
nounced arrangement has been made and
will be carried out, and if it isn't done I
want to see Chief Justice Depue get his
hands on these men who have been 'jol-
lying in the matter instead of considering
the rights of the people. The freeholders
have been talking technicalities and
finesse instead of going to work to look
otter the public rights, which are para
mount. They should have taken possess
sion of the bridge at once and if repairs
were needed should have had men work
ing day and night to make them and get
the road ready for public use."