The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-02-25
GRAB IS CHECKED
FOR A FEW DAYS
American Leaders Fail to Line Uu
All Their Councilmen in
It's Favor.
MULVEY LEADS THE FIGHT
HIS FELLOW PATRIOTS DECLINE
TO LINE UP AT PRESENT.


The $4,000 conduit grab contem.
plated by the American party lead.
ers in the city administration was
scheduled to be approved by the Joint
committee on engineering and sewer
age and waterworks yesterday after
noon; but it slipped a cog because sew
eraI americans on the joint commit
tee have not yet been brought into line.
| Inc committee held its meeting all
right, and Councilman Martin Z. Null
Vey promptly moved that the recon-
mendatiOn of Ci.y Engineer L. c. KEEL
sey that the $4,000 be expended be ap-
proved. If Mr.. MuIvey expected his
motion to be seconded. he was 6isaD-
pointed. COuncilmen w. Mont Ferry.
! n. X. Carter and z. G. O'Donneu. ali
! members of the committee and all
! Americans sat mute in their seats
| and then COuncilmen +. S. Fernstrom
J w J. Tuddenham and Rulon S Wells,
| all Democrats, proceeded to smite the
/ proposition hip and thigh for nearly
| two hours.
! The upshot of it all was that the
| committee agreed to visit the conduit
] next Tuesday for the purpose of see
ing for itself what is needed. This
Tuddenham and supported by Council
man Ferry.
viii Spend Much More.
City Engineer Kelsey tipped his hand
during the discussion yesterday. and
disclosed that the $4,000 and more in
extras which he has already recon-
mended shall be spent, is not all that
he contemplates spending. de said he
proposed TO change the line OF the cor
duit in many places. This will require
additional excavation. It means also
I that P J Moran, contractor and chief
prospective beneficiary of the grab.
will have to make new forms for the
curves in the conduit.
Mr. Kelsey admitted that the city
would have to pay for these forms. and
that they viii cost in the neighbo~-
hood Of $4,000 This fact was deveI-
Oped in Mr.. KeIsev's answers To ci47as-
tons pT0pounded by Councilman Car
ter, an American who is not vet
committed to the grab
Councilman T. r. Black presided
over the meeting. and. after Mr. Null
vey's motion had failed to receive q
second, Mr. Ferry opened the discus
sion by asking what would be the
status of the contract in case the 'ex-
tras" are approved and ordered.
Moran to Get 1t All.
Mr.. Kelsey replied that, under the
contract Moran would do the extra
concrete work at the same price as
that specified in his original contract:
that covering the conduit with earth
and plastering the inside of it would
be extras under the contract, and
that the price would be fixed by the
board OF public works, but that such
work, under the contract, would have
to be done by the original contractor
It was at this point that Mr.. Kelsey
let the cat out of the bag about the
proposed change of the line Of the
conduit, and then Councilman Tudden-
ham, himself a practical contractor.
insisted that before the committee ap-
proved -Kelsey's recommendations, il
should visit the conduit and inspect it
Both Tuddenham and Wells said that
they wanted to see how and why the
engineers under the previous admins
tratiOn had made blunders so serious as
those alleged by the city engineer.
I'll tell you how it was" interiected
race at the time, and you went into
this thing without knowing what you
were doing"
Mr.. Wells challenged this statement,
and said the plans for the work had
been drawn long before work started.
Fernstrom on Politics.
Fernstrom tok up MuIvey's charge
OF politics" with considerable vigor.
cit is true" he said, that work was
commenced late in the fall; but I
want to remind you that our political
opponents tied up our bond money for
months in an injunction suit. Unless
we started in the fall it was demon
strated that the conduit would be of
no service to us during the coming
simmer. The plans were fully ma
tUIed before the work started. OF
course some mistakes may have been
made.
There was no politics about this.
We selected as a consulting engineer
a man-Mr. Doremus-who has never
been suspected of voting the democrat
iC ticket. I think he should be con-
tinued to the end of the work, and I
believe he and Mr.. Kelsey can reach
a satisfactory conclusion as 20 what
ought to be done"
''WiH they spend $3.50 more on en-
demanded Mr. MuIvey-
L wouldn't kick if they did" re-
piled Mr.. Fernstrom. so long as they
could save us $4,000 extra money in
the price of construction"
Mr. FernstrOm went on to say that
$50, 600 had been spent in the past eight
years in engineering Investigations to
give Salt Lake water supply.
"The last administration. he de-
clared, gave you better results along
that line, and accomplished more for
less money than any administration
the city ever had"
Wells Replies to MuIvey.
Councilman Wells, replying to Mr..
Mulvey, said he regretted the inter-
lection of politics into the discussion
That politics had actuated the last ad
in it's dealings with the
water question, he declared, was not
true.
1T was no new or sudden move on
the part OF Mayor Morris and his adj
Continued on Page z.