Los Angeles herald., 1910-05-15
PUNK, IS VERDICT
OF PARK SYSTEM
Judge Silent Paints Glowing Pic
ture of What Might Be
Done with Them
SUGGESTS NEW BOND ISSUE
Declares City Fairgrounds Have
Been Neglected and ST.
100000 Wasted

Judge Charles Silent took the City
club by the hand yesterday afternoon
and led members ramble through the
various city parks. But Judge Silent
did not say to them, "See the beautiful
flowers. breath this delightful ozone.
Nothing like 1t. What he said, in er-
feet, was, isn't this punk?'
The speaker said that $1,20O,0OO had
been spent on the parks in the last
ten years and he wanted to know what
had become of the money. The parks
certainly didn't lock Y, he said, fnr
with especial reference to Westlake
park, If a deliberate attempt had been
made to ruin its beauty better JOB
could not have been done. lncompe-
tency and neglect through long
period of years have done much to
make what Judge Silent considers one
of the city's greatest assets an abom-
nation instead.
BOND ISSUE MAYBE
After he had pointed out the dis
agreeable things about the parks Judge
Silent, who is a member of the PARK
commission, painted some glorious pic
lures of what could be done. 1t Woulo
take much money, he conceded, mil
lions perhaps, and 1t might require
bonds to provide the money. He sug-
gested that as soon as the aqueduct
and harbor and power bonds have been
taken care of by their revenue produc-
ing features the people vote bonds 10
improve the parks One of the sugges-
tions he made was to turn the lake at
Westlake park into a real lake instead
of a tank of water, plant an aftlnclal
island in the center of the beautltul
volcanic rock from Griffith park and
on the island erect a monument 70
commemorate the owens river project.
The monument, he considered. should
cost not less than $150,000, and he be-
lieved il could be constructed from the
money that will be saved from the BOND
issue.
A beautiful boulevard to Pasadena,
using Sycamore grove as the gateway
and the Arroyo Seco as the basis, was
one of the visions the speaker depicted
He showed how feasible was the pro-
ject and how easily it could be done
with little money.
RED TAPE
After telling what could be done with
the parks Judge Silent told why the
present park commission, as enthuslas-
tic as 1t is, has not done more. Inc
regulations of civil service and the red
tape surrounding the purchase of sup
niles he gave as the chief reason. he
fold how the commission had ordered
certain seeds for planting in the parks
and that long after the time had
ELAPSED when nature demanded they
be planted, if at all, the seeds had not
been purchased, for the requisition had
not gone through the required routine
The purchase price of the seeds was
S21 and he had figured that the time
of the clerks who handled the requisi-
tion through it's various processes
amounted to $31.
He had no good words at all for the
civil service department. He told about
the effort of the park commission TO
abolish the positions of five watchmen
so as to save $400 a month to the city
and how the civil service department
had demanded they be reinstated and
refused to certify the pay warrants OF
certain laborers who were doing por-
tion of the watchmens work. Judge
silent declared the watchmen would
never be reinstated and if it was neces-
sarv there were two members on the
mark board ready and willing to pay
the wages Of the laborers who were
so badly treated by the civil service
commission.