The daily sentinel., 1906-08-17
GOES AFTER KELSEY.
Salt Lake Herald Roasts City Engi-
neer Who Wanted Engineer
ing Contract for Local
Mountain Water
SYSTEM


l. G. Kelsey. the city engineer OF
Salt Lake City. Utah. made appiico.
ton for the position of permanent
and supervising engineer of the
Grand Junction mountain water sys-
tenn He was here in person to com
pete with the firm of Young and
Kelsey, of Salt Lake. and other en-.
gineers. for the work. But Mr.. Kel-
sey did not land the contract, the firm
OF Young and Kelsey securing the
same, the Kelsey of this firm being
"a brother of City Engineer KELSEY
OF Salt Lake City but competitor in
business
The Salt Lake Herald brings Mr..
Kelsey to task for asking for outside
contracts when he should devote his
attention to the duties of his office.
The following is an editorial from
Wednesdays Salt Lake Herald:
The city engineer of Salt Lake
City is l.. C. Kelsey. Mr.. Kelsey
draws salary of S2.40O a year. Ii
was the supposition when he was ap-
pointed by the mayor and confirmed
by the council that he would devote
his entire time to the duties of the
office. That has been the practice
of other city engineers including
Kelsey himself under a former ad-
ministration-and there was no rea-
son for believing he would depart
from 1t. Yet we find Mr.. Kelsey
running over to Grand Junction. Colo.
in search of contract involving the
expenditure of a large amount of
money.
ut was suggested by one of the
other bidders that Mr.. Kelsey's time
was, or should be. fully occupied with
his duties as engineer of Salt Lake
City. This suggestion was natural as
Kelsey had said in a speech before
the council that he was now super
vising SS50.000 worth of work in
Salt Lake City. He said that by the
way of improving his ability to un-
dertake the work proposed by Grand
Junction. Later Mr.. Kelsey again
took the floor and. according to a
Grand Junction paper declared that
he would give the work his person
al attention, that he would not give
up his private practice for the city
engineers work in Salt Lake alone,
that he had seventy men working
under him in that city"
This is interesting information
for the people of Salt Lake. If there
was ever a time when a city engi-
neer should devote every working
moment to the city's work that time
is now. For, according to Mr.. Kel-
sey's own statement, and we do not
question it, the city has something
like $S50.0O0 worth of work con.
tracted for. 1t was to look after this
work. to give it the best attention at
his command. that L. C. Kelsey was
hired at a salary of 400 a year. If
it was his thought when he took the
office that he need devote only q part
of his time to it he should. in all
fairness have made a statement to
that effect.
''Mr. Kelsey. 1t is understood. has
stated that If he had been
given the Grand Junction contract he
would have resigned his present po-
sition. We submit that he should
have made that statement to the
Grand Junction council instead of
waiting until he was asked how 1t
was possible for him to do his work
in Salt Lake and look after
n Grand Junction contract at the
same time. We are quite sure Mr..
Kelsey will pardon the public If i'll
doubts the sincerity of his expressed
intention. Under the circumstances
1t is fair to believe that he would
have tried to hold poth places"