Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1913-06-12
ROAD BONDS.

The petitions asking the county
court to call an election for the pur-
pose of voting on the question of
Jackson county issuing seven hun
dred thousand dollars in thirty-year,
five per cent road bonds, the pro-
ceeds from which are to be used in
road construction, was started at the
good roads banquet at the Medford
Hotel Friday night, being signed
there by about two hundred voters.
The law requires that the petition
be signed by at least one-fourth of
the number of voters at the last cleo
tion. The petitions are being gen.
orally circulated and signed and the
matter will be speedily brought up
to the county court asking that an
election be called.
The election will probably be held
about, or before, the first of August.
1t is estimated that it will take
about $150,0O0 to complete the new
grade over the Siskiyous. 1t will
cost about $15O,OOO more to finish
the Pacific highway from the base of
the Siskiyou grade to the Josephine
county line. That means that three
hundred thousand will be required,
out of the seven hundred thousand
issue, to complete the Pacific high
way. If the bonds are voted by all
means the Pacific highway should
be improved so that it will be the
best road in Jackson county and not
inferior to any part of the highway
from San Diego to Portland. The
completion of a first-class highway
from Mexico to Canada, as is contem-
plated in the Pacific highway, will
mean that from twenty to fifty thou
sand tourists will be brought into
Jackson county every summer. Cal
ifOrnia is progressing rapidly with
its part of the work and will reach
the Oregon line within a year. Jack
son county should proceed with the
road over the Siskiyous at once and
be ready for the big traffic. Tour
lists visiting the Rogue River Valley
will leave enough money each sum-
mer to compensate the county for the
three hundred thousand expenditure
contemplated on the Pacific highway.
Therefore, everybody is in favor of
that road. Further, let it be un-
derstood that the Pacific highway,
including the Siskiyou grade, is not
an Ashland road, nor a Medford
road, nor a Central Point road, nor
a Gold Hill road; it is county
road; one contributing alike to the
commerce and prosperity of Sans
Valley, the Applegate and Little
Butte as much as to the points along
the route, because it is a highway
through which new blood and new
wealth will be introduced into the
whole valley, contributing its quota
of prosperity to the whole.
After three hundred thousand dol
lars of the issue is expended for this
road there will be left four hundred
thousand dollars to be expended in
betterment and new laterals through
out the county. The law requires that
the county court shall include every
road upon which any of the bond
money is to be spent in the order
for the bond election. That is, that
the county court shall set down in
the call for the bond elections the
precise roads to be benefited and the
exact amount that shall be spent on
each road, giving the starting point
and finishing point of the work to
be performed on each road. So that
when the call is made every voter
may inform himself, by reading the
call, of Just what roads are to be
benefited.
The attitude of the people through
out the county toward this bond is
sue will be determined largely by
the fair distribution of the benefits
to accrue to each community by the
expenditure of the proceeds from
the bonds.
The people of Jackson county, ol
OF any locality in the county, are no
now, nor have they been. opposed tC
good roads. Where the benefits arr
equitably misunderstanding ac
cording to the amount each localit.
will be taxed taxed as interest anC
sinking fund for bond redemption
the people will generally favor goot
roads bonds. 1t has been necessar.
in the past for some localities to op
pose bonds as a pure matter of self