The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1902-08-07

Mr.. Brock.
No reply.
"Do you decline to answer mc?" he
asked again.
| President Ringle made no reply Lut
nodded his head in the affirmative.
Il win start in by saying in reply to
Brother Bacon said Mr.. Brock, shat
l do not propose to retract what L said
at the last meeting.
II made an honest statement. The
budget shows that extreme fraud has
been perpetrated."
II hope you're not going to say any
more than you did last week." said
President Ringle, breaking in.
81 have been asked to retract the
statements / made in our minority re-
port. I'm going to prove those state
ments, but | would like to have your
| opinion about the $6S,O00 first" said-Mr.
Brock, addressing President Ringle. Il
consider that $GS,000 part of the fraud.
Yes, part of the fraud, Mr.. President, =
said he with emphasis.
countable for it all. There are certain
statements which l made in the press
about a $4,000 bond issue. / don't
know now whether the bonds were paid,
took the statement of the Comptroller.
''It is said there were no caucuses held.
1 charge that there were caucuses held
without the consent of the minority of
this Board. I'll prove I'm right.
SCANDALOUS WORK.
"The Friday preceding the day on
which the budget was passed | came into
| this room. Lists of figures were shown
me. / was told they were the figures
of the budget for next year. said GER
tain things about the figures, but was
not listened to. | was simply told
Those are the figures of the budget
Somebody became suddenly fright
ened and on Wednesday last before the
| budget was adopted schedule was ex-
| tracted and a substitute inserted with
] $6S, 900 deducted as available funds. The
minority portion Of the Board was ig-
norant of what was being done.
"At three o'clock there was no change
in the schedules About an hour later
the President of the Board was called
nside"-pointing to an inner room
"and then the tax budget was changed
and no mention of it was made to us,
the minority members of the Board.
'1'm sorry Mr. Lembeck isn't here
to explain his views and show how we
were treated in this matter. How was
| it that the Corporation Counsel. when
Mr.. Lembeck at one of the conferences,
asked about a certain thing that was to
be done, had prepared opinion in his
pocket
.sIf Pm wrong about this I'm willing
to admit it.
s'There are other matters unexplained
but / cannot speak about them because
the President of the Board refuses to
explain about the S6S,OOO
POLITICS IN THE BOARD.
''In reply to Mr.. Bacon, must say
| that 1 shouldn't waste the time Of the
| Board by attempting to reply to his
| statement. agree with him that politics
should not enter into the doings of this
Board. recall, Mr.. President, whaI you
said last January, when we elected you
President of this Board. You advised us
| to refrain from political controversies. /
refrained until forced to do otherwise and
| that was on account of the former
chairman of the Committee on Concur
rent Resolutions of this Board (Gen. III.
H. Abernethy). He made certain state
ments in the press and they were later
thrashed out by the Committee on Con-
| current Resolutions, and | couldn't le-
| frain from answering some of them.
RAILROAD INFLUENCE.
'sIf you will remember shortly after
this Board organized we passed resolu-
tion at the suggestion and request of
the Corporation Counsel, Mr.. Record, ap-
pointing the former Corporation Counsel
Allan L. McDermott, as an assistant to
the Corporation Counsel in certain
water front case. The Mayor agreed to
the appointment, l believe at the time,
but later he saw fit to veto it. He gave
no reasons. / could obtain none.
81 recall, gentlemen, the election for
Mayor last campaign, when George T.
Smith was heralded as a railroad man.
The hue and cry was He is railroad
man.
II charge now that that veto of the