The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1907-05-22
FERNSTROM FAILS
To FACE FIGURES
Councilman Martin Recalls Cost
of Advertising Under Morris
!, Administration.
POOR ATTEMPT AT POLITICS,
SAYS JUDGE DININNY
After the Dressing Down Fern
strOm Quickly Retires to
-, His Corner.

Councilman Fernstrom continued his
hlibustering tactics at the meeting of the
City Council Monday evening and
showed rather too plainly his eager
ness to delay city work and his sym
pathy with the hostile legislation of the
last session which has so embarrassed
and hampered the work of public im-
proyements.
In the effort TO find a way out of
the dilemma Judge Hiles, City Attor-
ney, had been asked TO prepare an or
dinance which would erablo the ad-
ministration to proceed with the work.
This had been introduced and came up
again at the meeting.
The ordinance provides that plans
and estimates shall be prepared by the
City Engineer with estimates of the
cost of the preliminary engineering and
inspection; that the Board of Public
Works shall furnish each bidder with
the statement of the preliminary cost
Of engineering and inspection together
with the cost of advertising, with in
structions TO him to include the same
in his bid. When the contractor has
finished his contract the Council is to
pass ordinances levying the special taxes
TO cover the cost of the improvements.
The ordinance then sets forth details
Of how these ordinances shall be
drawn
The inclusion Of the preliminary costs
In the contract IS to get over the leg
islatlye amendment which states that
the levy for the special tax can only
include the contract price, otherwise
the city would have to pay all the pre-
lminary costs. This has all been talked
over by the committees of the whole
and otherwise.
Fer1lstrom S Tactics.
l.. y.
to attack the advertising bills of the
administration and allude to the paper
getting the largest amount of the work
as the biggest grating concern the
city has ever had to do with - In his
lncoherent way he tried to say that the
purpose of this clause IN the ordinance
was to. encourage newspaper grating.
He maintained that this clause would
vltlate the whole ordinance to include
the advertising in the cost to the tax
payer. He then brought in an amend
ment embodylng his pet scheme that
all advertising should be contracted for
by tender, and to strike out the clause
relating to advertising. In his efforts
10 vent his spleen at The Tribune, he
was was st9utly backed by the quorum of
elders, but was sharply brought to book
by Councilman Martin and H. ]. Din.
lnny, assistant attorney.
Councilman Martin reminded Fern
strom that they had been fellow-mem-
bers OF former administration when
the advertising bills were third more,
and he had figures to show that this
was the case. He showed that where
the Morris administration paid SIS. so.
now So.5O was being paid, and that in
other cases where $4 so is now charged.
under the Morris administration Sc so
an inch was the charge for the same
number of insertions, He advised Fern
crr Il -, j. I.
such talk as he had made about graft to
wait until the books in the Auditors
office were burned up or out of the way,
for there was certainly evidence enough
of graft IN them to satisfy anybody.
Councilman Mulvey said the ordi-
nance was drawn by Judge Hiles, and
be did not for one propose to accent
storm, If any amendment was TO be
made II would not be adopted in this
way. He objected to any Councilman
attempting 10 lay down the law in such
a manner.
Ordinance Explained
Judge Dininny was called upon to ex.
plain the ordinance and sand that it
had been carefully considered by Judge
Hiles and himself. 1t was made to
conform with the act Of the Lecisla-
ture, which provides that the amount of
the levy should only contain the exact
amount of the contract entered into To
make the preliminary cost part of the
contract this clause had been inserted
To get it in the contract il must be
made q part of the bid. The ordi-.
nance did not IN any way change the
present situation. 1t only enabled the
city to meet the new law. The engi.
neer now makes the estimates and they
are included in the levy. This would
be in no way changed and the cost to
the taxpayer would be no more There
could be no such thing as bids for the
engineering work and the inspection
and il was nonsense to talk about bid
ding for the advertising. II had never
been done before nor was it practice BILE
Such talk he considered buncombe and
only got up BY Fernstrom and his
friends for political purposes. The or
dinance would stand the test and the
inclusion of the clause would not vitiate
II. as Fernstrom had claimed. The law
did not require any such inclusion as
to ask for bids for Advertising
Fernstrom had little 10 say after the
dressing down ne had received from
Judge Dininny and Martin and on mo-
tiou of Holiday the ordinance went to
the Municipal Laws committee with
the City Attorney,