The San Francisco call., 1910-12-11
ELLERY FACES
ANOTHER ROAST
FOR PLUMBING
Chico Normal School Trustees
Talk of Condemning Work
on Building
Senator Clifford Coggins Voices
Dissatisfaction With State
Engineers Results

Chico is down on the war map as the
State Engineer Nat Ellery and the To-
cal boards charged with the govern
ment of the states institutions.
The promised row at Chico will be
Chico normal school. unless the tenta-
tive program now we'll under way is
headed off 1t will be forced by the
trustees formal condemna tion of the
plumbing In the new training school
building, II not by their formal con-
demnation of the building as a whole.
Trouble between E11ery and the local
boards has been brewing for a long
time. The first outbreak was at the
recent meeting OF the state board of
lunacy held at the Sonoma home for
the feeble minded at Eldredge. Ellery
was grilled to rich brown by the
members of the commission for his al
legged incompetence, which. it was de-
clared, had resulted in preventing the
men under him from doing good work
and in frittering away appropriations
made for specific purposes and had
worked to the injury of the institutions
affected and the state generally.
THREATS MADE BY ELLERY
E1lery came back with a torrid reply
and a promise to put somebody in jail.
He hinted broadly at rampant graft un-
der the system in vogue prior to the
creation of the engineering depart
ment. He limited even more broadly
that the attacks on the work done by
him had their incentive in desire to
return to the easier system of former
days. After a single eruption Ellery
subsided. but apparently the local
boards are not finished with him.
Senator Clifford Coggins, member
of the board of trustees for the Chico
normal school, admitted yesterday thai
there was on foot a movement to in
vite public attention to the character
of the work done by Ellery at the Chico
normal school He also admitted that
the method suggested involved formal
condemnation by the trustees of the
training school building. for which the
last legislature appropriated $4,000.
CONDENSATION FOR WORK
Yes. it is true said Coggins," that
condemnation of the work done by Ell
lery has been considered. Such action
by the board of trustees might serve
to bring forcibly to the public's at
tention the kind OF service it has been
getting for its money. 1t may be that
the state engineering department idea
is good but it has not been worked out
to the advantage of the Chico normal
school,
The plumbing in the new training
school building must have been de-
signed and installed without any con-
ception of It's purposes or the needs of
the school. 1t is inadequate and wholly
-unsuited to the work it is expected to
accomplish.
Nor is that the worst of it. It is
of the cheapest and fimsiest character,
If appearances go for anything, and it's
installation is not creditable either to
designer or operator.
Il inspected the work recently with
President Allison Ware, and I confess
was more than surprised. 1t has been
suggested that formal condemnation
and protest by the trustees might act
as a safeguard against repetitions of
that kind of work. 1 am by no means
convinced that such action will not be
taken