The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1906-01-04
No Foundation for Criticisms Pro-
pounded by Supervisor Of AS
sessments in Open Letter
OFFICIAL ACTING IN BAD FAITH
Records of the County Show That the
Report of the Work of the Assess
ment Committee Was Correct
in Every Possible Way

ton, the county supervisor of assess
ments, has attempted to discredit an
article in the TEL. COURIER Of the
date of Nov. 80.
1t will be apparent to the reader Of
the article, in the light Of true facts,
that the supervisor Of assessments has
acted in bad faith and has attempted
to boost his own position with the
taxpayers, and to defend certain
members of the county board, in their
action of throwing much of the bur-
den of taxation upon the property
owners of the city. If the article
were written by one of the members
of the county board from the rural
districts, who had attempted to lessen
the taxes to his constituents in even a
small degree, by boosting the value Of
property in the city, there would be no
cause for surprise, but the supervisor
of assessments is elected to represent
the city as we'll as the county, and his
letter seems to be an effort to make
his position more solid with the coun-
try members of the board.
In order to find pretense for this
letter, Mr.. Harrison has read into the
article in this paper technical error
which does not exist, and working on
this alleged technica1ity and acting
in bad faith, he has attempted to
show that the figures given by this
paper were absolutely incorrect and
made for the purpose of misleading
| the public.
The article in question purported
to be a report of the work of the as
sessment committee of the county
board, and as such tit is exactly in
keeping with the records of the
county board Jas are on file with the
county clerk. In this article it was
stated that the assessment of the
county hadsbeen reduced by the COM
mittee, and that the assessment of
the property in the city had been in
creased. Mr.. Harrison, seeing in the
use of the word assessment chance
for bubble, and being DESTROYS of
airing personal grievances before the
taxpayers, leaped into print, and in
order to make his article readable,
made a direct attack on the truthful
ness Of the statements of the article.
His position is absolutely untenab1e
from every point Of view. From his
mass of verbiage one is able to dis
cover that he is attempting to con-
fuse the figures made by town and
city assessors with the figures handed
down as final by the members of the
committee on assessments, appointed
by the county board. 1t would be i'm
possible for the taxpayer to assume
that the article IN the paper referred
to the work of the assessors, as it was
directly stated in the very first para
graph that the report of the commit
tee on assessments was the matter in
question. Every statement made in
the COURIER was absolutely true, the
effort of Mr.. Harrison to discredit it
must seem pueri1e to the thinking
has no desire to enter into any con-
f1ict with Mr.. Harrison as to his per-
sona1 differences with Mayor German
or Michael Hensgen or any other men,
as these differences have already been
aired and there is nothing more to be
said about them. 1t is time, however,
/ that the supervisor Of assessments
was called upon to act in good faith
If he had been desiring to give the
people the whole truth he would have
stated in his open letter that the fg-
ures given IN the COURIER we're right,
and not have attempted to bubble
over mere technicality which he i'm
agined, but which did not exist
Mr.. Harrison seems to be 1aboring
under the delusion that the article in
question referred to the assessed val
uation, as made by town and city as
SCISSORS, and as the article in the
TEL. COURIER was entirely foreign
to the work of the assessors, his state
ments can carry no weight. He seems
to carry the inference that the TEL.
COURIER has stated that the assess
ments IN the county were less than in
1904. The TEL. COURIER has not at
any time made such statement. The
|
article which Mr.. Harrison assumes
to criticise stated that the assessed
values fixed by the committee on as
sessments of the county board for the
county, and on which the state and
county taxes were levied, were less in
1905 than IN 1904. This fact is borne
out and clearly shown by the two re-
ports appended for the examination
Of the reader, and which Mr.. Har-
rison knew, or should have known.
we're the ones referred to in the ar
ticle. The two reports follow:
REPORT OF. COMMITTEE ON ASSESS
MENT
To the Honorable County Board.
GENTLEMEN your committee.
to whom was referred the matter of
county assessment, beg leave to re-
port the following revision of the
values of the taxable property in the
city of Kenosha and the several towns
Of Kenosha county, and recommend
the following values for the year 1904,