The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1910-03-18
Declares That Salt Lake City
and County Make Unreason-
able Demands and That He
Will Not Consent TO Them.
COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
MAKE FRANK STATEMENT
viii Consider knight Franchise
Application at Any Time If
He Names Route His Road
viii Take Through County,
CITY COUNCILS ATTITUDE

Jesse Knight, Provo capitalist and
mining man, announced there yester-
day that he had decided to drop his
attempt to build an interurban cleo
trio railroad from Payson through
Provo to Salt Lake.
He gives as his reasons that it
seems impossible to get franchises
from Salt Lake county and Salt Lake
City.
He declared that both city and
county asked unreasonable things
from him; that he could not accept
the franchises under the terms Of
fered, and for that reason would drop
the idea.
The commissioners Of Salt Lake county
offered Mr.. knight franchise If he
would make known his route, as they did
not consider the granting OF a blanket
franchise would sufficiently protect the
people of the county. They sent word to
Mr.. Knight that they would consider his
franchise any time if he would name his
hAA luct nCoIu HOlIl4R IuFtheT
from him. So far as Salt Lake City lis
concerned, Mr.. Knight and his attorney.
Abel John Evans sill be asked to attend
meeting OF the city council special COM
mittee on franchises next Monday, and
an effort will be made at that meeting
to thresh the matter out, if the promoters
attend.
MIR. Knight last night made the follow
Ing statement: well, the only thing
they seemed to consider was what they
could get out of me. Other roads have
been paid bonuses to come to Salt Lake
put II seemed that all the city council
OF Salt Lake had in view was how much
they could make me pay. They wanted
TO make me pay Is cents car If / came
into the city, and did not want me to sell
the franchise in case 1 wanted to do So
without their consent, and they then
wanted US to give a $4,000 bond as guar
antee that we would do everything they
wanted us to do.
Competition With Railroads.
"In coming into Salt Lake we would
be IN competition with the steam rail
roads They have not yet been asked to
give anything to come into the city, and
should We? 1 believe that the people of
Salt Lake would like to have us come, as
is evidenced by the fact that the CONNER
c1al club petitiOned to the city council
to grant US an equitable franchise.
think that this is meant that we should
be given an equal franchise with other
roads. out the city council didn't want to
do this.
THE county commissioners told us that
they would not consider the franchise as
presented. They wanted to regulate af-
fairs and collect a per cent of the rates.
They are not doing that with the roads
that We would have to compete with.
They did write a letter later stating that
they would consider an application for
franchise if the right-of-Way was selected
| did not want TO select right-of-way
until / knew whether / could get the
franchise. 1t would have cost quite an
amount of money to make the several sur
veys necessary to select the best route,
and if the route was selected and named,
the right-of-way over private property,
which would have to be used for the
greater part of the road-we would not
have used the county road except where
absolutely necessary because We coHld not
make speed over it-wouid have cost
much higher price than it is really worth,
CONTINUED on Page Ten.)