The Kennewick courier. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1905-1914, 1913-06-20
TEN CITIZENS
DECLINE TO PAY
Property Owners in West End
Object to Assessments for
Local Improvements

Tuesday nights session of the
council was given over to hearing
affections of property owners to
their assessments in local improve
ment districts Nos. 10 and IL which
cover the street and parking strip
grading and the curbing in Amon's s
Addition. After about two hours
Of discussion participated in by At
torneys Moulton, Henderson, Hol-
comb and Noland, Mayor Kolb and
members of the city council, action
was deferred until the next regular
meeting.
Those who expected that events
would become somewhat torrid dur
ing the consideration of the case
were disappointed. The ten OBJ
jectors each presented two formal
objections, one covering the assess
ment levied for the grading and the
other for the curbing. Those sign
ing the objections were M. M. Moul-
ton, Hover Investment Co., Kenne-
wick Transfer Co., M. H. Church,
E. R. Carnahan, w. J. Hoyt, I. N.
Mueller, H. A. Bier, S. q. Hender-
son, and S. M. Henderson.
Besides taking objection to the
amounts which have been assessed
against their several properties, the
owners claimed various irregulari-
ties in the legal proceedings under
which the improvement districts
were established; asserted that no
plans or profiles of the districts
were accessible at the city engineers
office; and that the work had never
been completed by the contractor.
All of the objections covered the
same ground, except in the case oi
the Henderson property, where the
owners took particular exception te
being assessed for two driveway
crossings put in with the curbing,
claiming that as there was no alley
to give access to their property the
city was compelled to putt in the eros
sings and that this extra expense
should be assessed against the whole
district and not against their par
ticular properties.
The contention of the objector
that the district was not legally es
tablished is true iA one technica
detail, inasmuch as the publication
OF the original resolution of inten
ton lacked one day of the prescribet
legal period. This is a regretabl
error and one that would have hat
to have been corrected in any case
through reassessment, even thougl
there had been no objection raises
BY the property owners.
1t is probable that the city clerl
was in error, legally, in assessin
against the Henderson property tn
extra expense of putting in the eros
sings. although the improvement
was Of direct benefit only to tn
property concerned.
The various other objection
raised by the property owners anon
which are that there were no plan
or profiles on file in the city en-
glneer's Office and that no prope
grade lines were furnished the cor
tractor, are denied most empha'
lcally BY the city clerk-enginee,
lie also seems to have the better {
the argument advanced by the prop
erty owners that their individus
assessments were not computed col
rectly. The figures of the engineer
Ing force were made according
the legally prescribed square fot
zone method, were carefully checke
and have been proven correct. A
an instance of the accuracy wit
which the work was done it ma
be said that the engineer based h
curblng assessments on a cost
10000 for the entire district an
tnat when the individual asses
mantS on tbo OSO n;. e