Los Angeles herald., 1908-03-31

InlS point.
Wants Competition
"When a manual system is installed,
will il not advantage the city to have
omen specifications and call for a dem
onstration of competing manual sys-
TENS, or cannot the city install its
own system, buying the necessary ap-
paratus?
How is it that the city for years
paid $100 each for Gamewell boxes and
now pays $125?
"I have examined the minutes of the
city council for the last fifteen years
relating to this matter and am at
loss to understand how the Gamewell
company got the contract for the po-
lice alarm system in VIE of the fact
that there was bid for less than one
half of the amount of the Gamewell
company's bid.
Nor do I understand why $3.50 police
signal boxes were not equipped with
telephone receivers and transmitters,
this omission in equipment forcing
the city to furnish the same. This
it did about eight years ago by renting
phones from the Sunset Telephone and
Telegraph company at $5 per year per
box, so that each police signal box
has cost the city an additional $40 to
date in order to make it effective. In
point of fact the chief practical value
of the police signal box is the tele-
phone it contains.
No More Rentals
LAS a result of the investigation I
have made the city has ceased to rent
phones for police alarm boxes from the
Sunset Telephone and Telegraph COM
pany and has installed it's own at
cost of So per phone. The city spent,
h T1d
owned nothing. Now it spends SIS per
box and owns the phone.
Again, the iron pedhstals that sup
port our police signal boxes have cost
from $50 to $40 each. In the east prac-
tically the same pedestals, without the
hood, cost SIS each.
I'm the franchise granted to the
Sunset Telephone and Telegraph COM
pany the city has a free duct, which
it does not use.
1T is true that by using the duct
the free use of fifty phones would
cease, but it would gain more than
that amounts to in the monthly bills
of the telephone companies for tele-
phone rentals in connection with the
alarm system, besides saving several
hundred dollars every year in the bat
teries and making the system fifty per
cent more efficient.
Our whole police and fire alarm sys-
TENS are dependent on the telephone
companies and should anything happen
to them the whole system would be dis
abled The national board of fire un-
derwriters recognizes this fact and
condemns the renting of wires.
How About Fosters Signals?
Another matter to which, 1 would
especially call your attention is the
fact that the Municipal league, the
Merchants and Manufacturers associa-
ton and the chamber of commerce
have several times petitioned your hon
orable body to install the Foster sys-
TEN of flash light police signals, and
every time these petitions have been
ordered filed.
"On reading through the miputes of
previous councils l was struck with
the regularity with which this hap
pened and have therefore investigated
the Foster system I am satisfied that
such a system as installed by Mr.. Fos-
ter in the Bonnie Brae district, if
adopted by the city in its outlying dis
tricts, would be equivalent to at least
an additional twenty-five patrolmen.
The present police signal system is only
effective when a patrolman goes to
box TO report, whereas the Foster sys-
TEN in addition enables the department
to communicate Immediately with any
or all patrolmen on their beats should
occasion require. Surely in cases of
crime the immediate notification of
patrolmen on their beat would be of
inestimable value to our citizens. If
this is not true, why do the residents
of the Bonie Brae district find it profit
able to employ such a system in adj
dition to the police protection provided
by the city,"
Asks Secret Inquiry
Owing to the character of some of
he vidence that he will present to the
commission and the fact that the ques-
tion of the payment of the demands
will probably have to be settled in the
courts, Auditor Mushet urges that the
public interests will be best served if
ings only of the commission made pub
ings only of the commission made pub
lie Any other course would, he be-
lieved, jeopardize the city's position if
the claims have to be judicially passed
upon by the courts.
"If it is found that the claims are
illegal or eXorbitant or both, l would
ask that the blame be fixed where it
belongs and that proper steps be taken
to prevent a recurrence" Mr.. Mushet
concluded.