The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1907-04-17
NO PROPER SHOWING.

There is a remarkable lack of dis"
cussion and an apparent letharGy OIL
interest in the school bond election
scheduled for next Saturday. We have
nointed out TO the Board of Education,
which is calling the election TO author
ize The issue of $250,000 in bonds, GER
tain desirable things to do in order to
secure the approval of the taxpayers
We have urged that the Board set
forth in specific address to tho peo-
ole lust what the trouble is, where 1t
is, and what is proposed TO remedy 1T,
And in reply to this we notice that the
Herald yesterday morning says: 1.-The
board has published such statement.
In this, however, the Herald is quite
wrong The board has published no
statement A letter from the city super"
intendcnt. however, has been printed,
which is so indefinite and, IN some re
spects, of so absurd q character that 1T
is not TO be supposed that the board
would rest its case upon the presenta-
ton made therein The board has ut
terly neglected It's duty in this matter,
and if the taxpayers fail to see the
need which is claimed IN general terms
by the board, but not shown in any
specific case, the board has only itself
to blame IN case there should be a
negative vote,
We stated further, in view of the
shameful if not illegal acts of the board
with respect to the building of the
Newman school, that there does not
appear to be any one competent IN
charge of school building under the
auspices of the present board or in the
board itself, to conduct the building in
a proper manner. In the case of that
school, the contract was awarded to n
bidder who was $4,000 above the lowest
bid received. 1t was the plain duty of
the board, if it did not wish to accept
the lowest bid, to advertise again and
not give such a very great margin as
this, which was considerable over
twenty five per cent, to the next lowest
bidder. The action taken in this mat
ter gave rise TO suspicion Of collusion,
favoritism, aud undue influence Again,
after the contract was let, the specifica-
tions were found to be faulty in that
the walls were thinner and weaker than
the city ordinances require, and that the
building if so constructed, would be
unsafe The attention of the city's
building inspector was called TO the de.
fects, and he ordered them corrected.
We insist that the action of the board
in making the award of the contract
was so gross An, abuse that the tax
payers would not be justified in trust
ing quarter Of a million dollars to the
same incompetence, with the risk Of
wasting onc.fourth Of 1T in favor Of
bidders not entitled, on their figures, to
the contract. Again, while so little at
tentIon is paid TO the specifications Of
the building rs was done in that case
| and would likely be done again, the
taxpayers arc not justified in entrusting
| building construction to such control.
The Herald, in reply 10 this, said that
the name of Judge Henderson, mem
bcr OF the board, would probably be a
/ sufficient guarantee that everything
would be done properly with respect to
! the building. But. first Of all, Judge
! Henderson is not known to be an ex-
pert builder, or to have any particular
/ skill in passing upon building speci-
fications, or seeing that buildings arc
properly constructed; second, he is not
a member Of the board S building com.
mittee, and would not be likely to be
called in on the matter at all, Our smg-
gestion as TO this was that the board
should designate a building commission,
in which the public would have conf.
dence, W examine the specifications, lot