Williams news., 1905-09-30
PROTESTS NOT WANTED
Board of Supervisors Refuse Pulp
 licatiOn in Minutes

puUiISulIiS tue OLlCidi hiuuICS ol the board of supervisors. In our last issue appeared some relative to the boards action on certain mat ters. On our arrival home last Friday evening we learned that one member of the board had entered a protest, which did not appear in the minutes, and it was then too late to procure copy of same. That our readers may know the contents we herewith give it pub lication.
 Flagstaff, Ariz., Sept. 20, 19O5.- I protest against the foregoing in the case against the county record CT. I do not wish as an officer of the county to waive the right of the public to this large amount. Prior decisions by eminent judges in sim liar cases seem to indicate that the right of the county to the fees in dispute is unquestioned, and at least one of the decisions constru- ing a parallel case was made by our chief justice sitting as trial judge, before any of the amounts now being sued for were withheld by the recorder.
 A decision from so high source was undoubtedly sufficient to put a prudent county officer on his guard.
 It seems to me that an adjust ment of the suit through the courts is the only way that will finally and honestly dispose of the ques- tion involved. A. T. CORNISH,
 Member Board of Supervisors.
 Coconino county, Ariz.
 The following is a copy of DOT ton of the protest filed by District Attorney H. F. Ashurst against compromising the suit pending against H. c. Hibben for $5, ,972.5O, which reads as follows:
 "This office has expended much time and labor in preparing this case and the county has been to some expense for printing briefs, etc., and certainly it would not be fair to the public for your honora- ble body to accept the ex parte showing made by defendant and give the county no opportunity to be heard, and thus say to the de fendant that his appointment of deputies made by him ad libitum without the knowledge or consent of the then board of supervisors, are approved by you, and it would be the acme of unfairness to the public to thus set the seal of your approval upon the unsafe idea that g public officer in this county may take fees by the doctrine of silence, and implication and then fail to keep any record of amount of the same, and preclude the pub lie from any knowledge as to what sums of money the official was re- ceiving.
 < q have gone into this matter at length to place same be- fore you in it's true phase and to enter a protest against your hon. orable body dismissing or compro- missing this action. It is my firm conviction and unqualified opinion that the county will be successful in the suit now pending in the court and my view is strengthened by the fact that this particular point of law involving the right of the county to the fees in question has been held in Maricopa county, and l am advised that it has been held by Judge Sloan in Yavapai ,ounty-that the fees for certificates 10 abstracts of title and for nota- ions of muniments and abstracts belong to the county and not to ,he recorder"
 President E. P. Ripley of the Santa Fe makes the statement that he washout of the past year cost he company three million dollars n repair work, overtime to em- oloyes and detouring of trains. But | he company declared a dividend | ust the same.-Needles Eye. |