Arizona republican., 1909-05-04
ANNUAL MEETING IF
 WATER USERS ASSN ELECTION OF COUNCIL OFFICERS AND BOARD OF GOVERNORS. Proposition of Bartlett Heard Company to Sign Its Lands to the
 Association.

The annual meeting of the council and board of governors of the Salt River Valley Water Users association was held yesterday. 1t is on this oc- casiOn, annually. that the newly elect ed members of the two bodies are seat e1 after the retiring bodies have closed up the years business, the first inn portant matter, after the installation of the new boards, being the election of officers.
 The council. which is the legislative body of the association, spent most of the day in considering various matters brought before it. but took no definite action on anything of importance ex- cept the election of its own officers for the ensuing year. l., J. Rice being named for chairman and Dr. John W Foss for secretary.
 The old board of governors met in the morning and transacted the routine. business. auditing bills for the last month, etc; then listened to the an nual report of the secretary, Charles A. Van der Veer reciting a summary of the work of the association for the past year, the report being adopted and filed
 At o'clock, the new board met and proceeded to organize by the re- cleo tion of all the present officers, as fol- lows: Charles A. Van der Veer, secre- tary; Franklin D. Lane. treasurer. and Judge J. H. Kibbey. legal adviser. The president and vice president of the as sOciation are elected by popular vote of the members of the association every two years, this being an alter nate or off year
 The board appointed committee to draft appropriate resolutions of re- spect to the memory of the late A H Demrick, drowned at Roosevelt on Sunday. the board recognizing his un- timely demise as most unfortunate and feeling a sense of personal bereave- ment in his death. The committee will report later.
 Afessrs. 4. C. Bartlett and Dwight B. Heard appeared before the board and submitted a proposition of considerable importance, not only to them as the owners of the tract of land on the south side of the river not vet signed to the reservoir project but to the associa- tion. and the general interests of the valley. The proposition developed di- versified opinion, and no action was taken, the matter being held in abey- ance
 The proposition was that the Bart lett Heard company would sign its ranch lands to the association and pay all back dues, amounting at this time to thirty-two cents per acre, placing the lands on a parity with all others. MnTr16 fn ha ar-t,r1n mi ha San Francisco canal. which the ranch company owns, to be utilized as part of the distributing system of the val ley, on condition that the government would extend the time for disposing of the excess lands above 16O acres for five years.
 It was stated that this proposition had been made to the reclamation ser vice a long time ago, and it had been forwarded to Washington and returned with the endorsement that 1t would be agreeable to the government. pro- viding it was agreeable to the Water Users association.
 The company stated that it desired to cut the ranch up into forty-acre sections, improve them and sell them off on long time payments. working out  This could not be done by the time the government will require the disposal of other excess holdings in the valley. The speakers believed it would be a good move in the interest of the val ley not to throw that much excess land into the market so soon in addition to the acreage that must be disposed of in other quarters. On the contrary. the company has at least so per cent of all the water it will ever require through its ditch and pumps, but to make the district more harmonious and to insure the abundant water supply, it is willing to contribute the ditch and pay the fees, the same as all other lands. The undesirable feature of the plan is the establishing of a precedent for dealing specifically with certain tracts in different manner than with other lands in the association. even though the conditions are different.
 Following is the text of the report of the years work made yesterday by Secretary Charles A. Van der Veer to the board of governors:
 "Gentlemen-While there is no pro- vision for a report of the work done during the year in the office of the secretary of the Salt River Valley Water Users association, it has seemed fitting that there should be submitted a brief outline of what has been done during the past year. Many of the individual items are brought to the mo- tice of the president and the board of governors at the time of their record ing vet their number. in the aggre- gate, is, perhaps, not realized from this fragmentary reporting.
 There have been received and filed during the year fifty-seven new sub scription contracts, ranging from one to 16O acres each, and adding 5,219