Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1912-12-23
BOWERS CASE
SAVES MUCH
DIVERSION OF COUNTY FUNDS
MUST BE STOPPED.
THE DECREE Is ONLY MODIFIED
Supreme Court UphOlds Judge Cal
kins in Every Point in the Case
Excepting Regarding the $4,000
Appropriation.

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Benton Bowers bridge case has been
received in this city, and instead of
being reversal Of Judge Calkins it
sustains him in all but one point and
modifies the injunction in one point.
The decision as handed down de-
cides that the county court has been
at fault in mixing the road and gen.
eral funds, and that the acts of the
court in past years in paying for road
work out of the general fund have
been Illegal Hereafter it will be
compulsory to keep the funds sepa-
rate and when one fund is exhausted
it will not be possible to use the
money from the other fund for any
but the purposes of the fund to
which it belongs.
Another point in which the suit
means a great deal to the taxpayers
of Jackson county is in compelling
Medford and the p. & Z. railway to
pay $4,000 toward the Medford
bridge. At the time of the signing
of the contract for the bridge by the
county board there was no talk of
Medford or the railway company do
mating toward the bridge. 1t was
apparently the plan to pay the entire
1884, out of the county funds. Af-
the the Bowers suit was started the
city and railway same into court with
the proposal to pay $4,000 toward
the bridge, but according to all ac-
counts there has been no promise of
record, except as It was entered into
the pleadings of the case. The su-
preme court, however, enjoined the
county court from paying over the
$4,000 that would be the county's
portion of the cost of the bridge un-
til the city and the railway company
has paid in the $4,000 which they
promised. Thus the Bowers case has
saved the treasury $4,000, even if
the county does nave to pay $4,000
toward the bridge.
Had the rule that the two funds
(road and generaD must be kept sep
arate been complied with in the past,
then the large amount Of warrants
now outstanding against the general
fund, many of which were issued for
road work, would not have been is
sued, and the county would have been
in much better shape, and all of her
warrants would have been kept at
par, Even the Medford papers admit
that the law has been violated during
the past four yeas, as was alleged
before the recent election. The Nail
Tribune in an editorial Friday last
says:
THE suit brought by Benton Bow
ers has not been in vain. Though
based upon prejudice and false legal
premises, it has indicated clearly the
cause of warrants being at a discount
and in all probability the new
county court will rigidly enforce the
law. If it does not, the bondhelders
of officials should"
The contention of Messrs. Bowers
and Carleton and their attorney, Mr..
Briggs, was upheld upon every point
except as to whether the road in
question was a county road, or a city
street within the meaning of the law.
This question the court will be asked
to reconsider in motion for a re-
hearing which is being prepared by
Mr.. Briggs, and which will be sub
mitted by him in the near future.
The rules of the Oregon supreme
court, which allow only an hour
verbal argument in a case of this
character, did not give Mr.. Briggs a
chance to more than touch upon this
phase of the question, and he hopes
to be able to convince the court that
it should reconsider it's decision in
this particular.