Los Angeles herald., 1907-02-01
ERASE FIGURES
FROM MAPS At
CITY OFFICES
Assessor Mallard Is
Surprised
Back Of Request for Hiring Valuation
CLERK to Replace Assessment
Is a Complicated
story

Behind the appointment of a tenn
porary valuation clerk made posslolc
by the council at Mondays meeting lies
a sensational story
Had not the figures from Twenty-Five
maps i'm the city assessors office becn
carefully erased recently no such clerk
would have been necessary. nor would
the greater part Of the time of five men
the past few weeks been devoted to
replacing these same figures.
They are the city assessment maps
and without them the office is handi-
capped.
For days the mystery has been as to
who issued the order to clean off the
figures which were a part of the office
equipment as important as the turnl-
ture and books
This is one side Of the story
Lewis Friends Talk
The other is from friends of former As
SCISSOR Evan Lewis, who say that he ad-
Inits that he ordered the figures erased,
as he believed in letting his successor
start with a clean slate.
He says in return that the eXpunged
figures story was started by Assessor
Mallard as an excuse for getting the
appointment of his friend Mccoy,
whose name was far down on the
eligible list and hence had to be named
to an emergency place to get i'm
mediate attention.
At any rate next Tuesday the new
assessor will tell the civil service COM
mission about conditions in his office.
1.-The erasures were made during the
four weeks elapsed between the time |
was elected and took Office" said Mr..
Mallard yesterday. He would go into
no further details.
Office Politics There
From other sources it was learned
that Mallard has found that much of
the time of his force of deputies was
taken up with office politics instead of
office work. When Mallard was deputy
assessor in the county assessors office
he had occasion to discharge a number
of men. These are now back on the
force of the city assessors office
through the operations of civil service.
Acting on a tip Assessor Mallard re-
Gently went out to Ascot park and
despite the civil service rule that en-
ployes of the city must not frequent
Ascot track during the race meet he
found one of his deputies writing sheets
for bookmaker. He learned that this
employe worked for the bookmaker
every Saturday afternoon.
When employees of the assessors Of
flee were asked yesterday who issued
ures on the map one after the other
said, Man higher up" This convinced
Mallard that there was a motive in the
act. though when asked a direct ques-
tion he eVaded it.
Lewis Explains 1t
Last night Assessor Lewis took the
responsibility for the order.
I'VE clean the maps once a year."
said he. Always have done So If my
successor knows the city as we'll as l
do he will not have need for the map.
/ ordered the maps cleaned
Though the valuation clerk was
authorized for only a month it is
thought the position will be made d
permanent one on the staff.
The assessors office sensation is an
other instance of the eleVenth-hour
surprises that grew out of the secret
committee of the whole sessions. Nal
lard's need of a valuation clerk was
stated there, but nothing was said
about the erased figures. Had former
Assessor Lewis known of the hearing
he would gladly have appeared there
and explained the circumstances. 1t is
said, too, that those who are opposing
McCoy's appointment would have been
glad to enlighten the Councilmen who
seek their information behind closed
committee doors.