Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1910-03-01
COMMISSIONERS
 GIVE ANSWERS
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Company, bonds payable in the state of Arkansas.
 13th-Bonds advertised for by per- sonal solicitation and by letter to all the leading purchasers in the coun- try.
 14th.-No commissions were paid to any persons for selling bonds, no financial agent employed.
 15th.-The board has no arrange ment made for interest on balances of money deposited. The treasurer of the district has charge of the funds and is responsible on his bond for the same. The time limit of the con- tract was 120 days. Had weather conditions been normal the work would be practically completed at this time and the money would all have been paid out.
 The maturity of the bonds are made at such time as to follaw as shortly as possible upon the collection of the improvement tax, and it is the pur- pose of the board to have no balances on hand; at least only as small balance as is possible. We state further that so far as comes within our knowledge none of the improve ment districts of the city have ever collected interest on the balance of funds in their hands. It would be il- legal to loan the money of the dis trict.
 We trust we have made ourselves sufficiently clear to the end that our county judge may intelligently ans wer s.the many tax payers who have before now sought information in vain at his hands. If any of the tax payers of the county outside of the city of Pine Bluff have been lab bring under misapprehensions or un- dergoing any anxiety on the score of what use is being made of the funds of this district, we wish to state to
 
 them, first, that the judges statement that the county had advanced about S20,000 was not correct. The county has not advanced single dollar to this enterprise and will not be called on to do so. There is collected an- nually to the credit of the road dis {,,io Joh hn njf of Inf and this proposed improvement is situated three-mill tax upon all the assessed property in the district. It has been the custom of the county judge, who has charge of this fund, to use part of the same in assist ing these improvement districts in the city For instance on Martin avenue there was some $4,400 ad vanced, about one-third of the total cost of the improvement. East Sec ond avenue, we are advised, was ad- vanced something like $14, 1000 nearer 40 per cent of the total cost of the And the same thing is true of other improvement districts in the city while district No. 26 gets less than 25 per cent, but it does not come out of the county fund, and is paid by the property in Road Dis trict No. 1, the district in which the city of Pine Bluff is situated. The law requires the county judge to use one-fifth of this fund outside of the city limits, but not dollar of the road tax collected outside of the city can be used upon the streets and roads in the city This statement per haps will relieve the minds of the tax payers if there be any such liv- ing outside of the city who have been hesieging the county judge with in- quiries as to what is being done. It is needless to say that any person living in the city and who is in the slightest way familiar with the for nation and management of improve ment districts would know that the oo,,pfy iudoo ic mot tho nronor off,