Omaha daily bee., 1906-01-07
cur LETTER BOX.



OMAHA, Jan. 6.-To the Editor of The
Bee: The city council that will be elected
next May under our new charter will be
composed of twelve members, who shall
be nominated and elected at large and
each member shall be a resident of the
ward he represents and a freeholder in
the CITY," That was the form of the mo-
ton as it was adopted by the Douglas
county delegation In the legislature, but
the lawyers In drawing up the charter
sought to improve the wording by using
the words "chosen at large" in place of
nominated and elected As a result MANY
candidates for the council are trying 10
figure out whether chosen at large means
nominated as well as elected at large.
However, the city clerk, whose duty II
is to issue the primary proclamation. has
declared that he will comply with the in
tention of the Lawmakers and call for
nominations at large. Twelve councilmen
is the same number we had twenty years
ago, but then they represented but six
wards. There was a ward councilman
from each ward and six counciImen at
large-the six receiving the largest number
or votes were elected without regard to
their residence, and as result there were
three councilmen from some wards and
of wards was increased to nine, we had
eighteen councilmen; but the next change
did away with the ward councilman and
left us our present number-nine.
In those booming days the mayor and
council were the government. There were
no board OF control OF any Of the depart
ments; there was no comptroller to watch
over the treasury. The government was
very simple and did cost ,,,,,ol,
everybody knew where to put the blame,
If anything went wrong. There was no
money lost or stolen out of the public
treasury, and yet the people, who always
want to reform somebody or something.
insisted that we should have boards to
govern each department and a city COMP
troller TO be check on the treasurer; but
when all the safeguards were installed and
the cost of government nearly doubled.
they discovered that the treasury was not
as well protected as in the olden days.
Our present excellent charter cut out
two Of the boards and consolidated the
city and county treasurer and taxing de-
partments, thereby saving $4,000 to $50 ono
a year TO the taxpayers and making II
more convenient to pay taxes This badly
abused charter provides that no more CON
tracts for light, garbage or anything ~
that description shall be made by resolu
tion and run through the council in one
night. They must be made by ordinance
giving the people plenty OF time TO head
them OF II they are not right. The con-
tract provision il the one that has made
the charter so unpopular for those who
want to get more than they are entitled
to. The manner in which contracts were
let for last year saved thousands Of dol
lars for the taxpayers and gave all the
contractors fair show. The powers and
duties OF the council are much greater
under this charter than under the one
that preceded It. The council will perform
the duties that formerly belonged to the
Board Of Public Works, the Advisory board
and the Boards OF Appraisers on the
grades and grading OF streets and. as the
sidewalk inspectors are abolished. each
councilman will have 20 be sidewalk in
spector in his own ward
The couneilmen in performing the duties