The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-07-14
TOWN CLERK NICKERSON DEFlES
 SELECTMEN OF BEDDING, BY REFUSING TO BRING BOOKS IN
Expert Soule, Searching for Shortage, Wants Tax
 Lien Records Vault in Town Hall Is Pre- pared for Books, But Clerk Says It's Too Damp Selectmen May Make Appli- cation to Superior Court for Removal of Recall
 citrant Officer

Bedding, July 14-With Town Clerk men and with the Selectmen scurrying around to consult lawyers for the pur- pose of setting in motion legal activi- ties of a compulsory nature. side issues of the town audit now under way by Expert Soule overshadow in interest the general object of the investigation. Last week MT. Soule made such pro- gress with the work of matching up tax abstracts with their comparison rate books that he informed the Se- lectmen he would be prepared this week to take up the tax lien records. MT. Nickerson to produce these liens at the town house where the expert is doing his work. This request being unheeded MT. Pickney followed with another and more formal and emphatic demand. The town clerk still re- mained refractory, taking the position that he was the legal custodian of the records and was under no obligation to take them outside of his office at the behest of the Selectmen or any other official except perhaps the State commissioner.
 Meanwhile Attorney Tweedy of Dan bury had been consulted. and he ad-
 
 end that the town clerk be ordered to remove all the town records now kept at his home to the fireproof vault in the town house which was built sev- eral years ago as g. depository for these records but has never been used for that purpose on account of the damp ness which rises through the concrete floor and mi1dews books exposed to it.. Accordingly the Selectmen, at a sDe- cial meeting last Friday. passed res olution embodying the lawyers sug- gestion and it was promptly communf- cated to the town clerk with a re- hinder that noncompliance with the statute requiring land records to be kept in the fireproof vault provided for them was punishable by a fine of $50 and also Imprisonment. The vault, although damp in the winter and dur ing spells of wet weather. is now per- fectly dry. Arrangements have been made by the Selectmen for alterations intended to make it damp proof, and a man is expected daily to start on the job.
 The third demand. amplified and cessors. produced no sign of yielding on the part of MT. Nickerson. To First Selectman Sanford, who talked with him over the phone on Tuesday, he said in substance that he did not wish to expose the books to ruin by IL. ond Selectman A. H. Sanford he talked in the same vein and advanced the further excuse that it was impractic- able for him to do the moving as there was a truck load of the books. It became evident that the town clerk continued to be in an obstinately un- yielding mood.
 The Selectmen conferred on the sit uation by phone and decided that resort must be had to extreme meas ures. What form these would take was left for decision until MT. Pinkney torney Tweedy. Before the end of the week a special meeting of the Select men will be held and line of action marked out. Three courses suggest themselve. One is prosecution un- der the statute requiring that the rec IS the seeking of a mandamus from the Superior court ordering the town clerk to make such a transfer The third is a petition to the Superior count. brought through the State att torney, for the removal of the town clerk from\ office by reason of the grounds set forth in the petition. MT. Nickerson's present term will not ex- pire until a year from next October, and it would not be at all surprising if the Selectmen endeavored to cut it short by the method referred to. As OIc cause 1OT HIS T0InONd1 they H1<y allege incompetency. They say other grounds are his failure last fall to turn over $h0 in dog tax license receipts until pressure was brought to bear on him, and a third his failure to account for $35 of property taxes paid him by Mrs. Cornelia Moore until she produced his receipt for tn epayment.
 The statute under which removal proceedings may be brought was en- acted by the General Assembly of 1908, and applies to town treasurers as well as to town clerks. As this is the sea- son of court vacations there might be some delay in securing a judge to act on a removal petition or mandamus petition. It is expected that a judicial order growing out of the latter pro- ceeding would bring the town clerk promptly to terms as a refusal to obey would subject him to the penal ties of contempt of cout.
 No announcement is made of the re- suits so far obtained from the re- searches of Expert Sou1e. If any er- TOTS have been disclosed they could be only of a clerical nature. as the work pertains merely to the verification of figures transferred from one book to another. The financial element will come in more directly when the figures of the rate books. tax liens and town treasurer's books are sized up' in comparison with each other