The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-10-08
NOT WHAT HE DID BUT WAY HE DID IT
Causes Criticism of Act of Red
 ding's First Selectman.
A Transaction First Revealed Through Inquiry Made at Mondays Town Meeting.- Road Question Causes No Contention.
Cspecia1 to The Farmer.)


 Reddinx Oct 8-For the first time in several years the road question failed to produce any particular con troversy at the business session Of the annual town meeting on Monday and hence thes proceedings were less scrappy and. &en1fvening than usual! The advocates of both the supervisor and the contract system remained dumb and an appropriation of 1000 had been voted before the manner of it's exper1diture was brought up. A motion that the fund be apportfoned sos that $2.ooO should be at the dis. posaI of each selectnaan for use in the section allotted. him. was with. drawn after some discussion The ap- propriatfon is the largest ever made by this town for road repair purposes exceed1n gz.tf1at of last year by $2Oo- Se1ectnan Barnes said that two or three bridges should, be rebuilt during the coming year, preferably, of con crete, and that 1t was desirable to continue the work of blasting out rocks from the highways.
 The schools. also received an appro- pristiola of ;0O0. This is g little less than their net cost during the past year which was about $1,ooo ebove the appropriati on. Chairman Pink neys of the town school committee ex- o1ained the situation which had al- ready been set forth with full detail in the. committee's printed report. This shows that while the number or children enumerated slightly, decreas- ed the number in school had in creased. The four town schools, with, five teachers cost $3,5o0, a decrease of $34 from the previous year. The additional expense came from tuition and transportation of high schooI pupils each |representing a net out Ia yof about $100, and the increase in the number of Georgetown chill dren attending the Union school in Wilton. These now numbered 86- MT. Pinkney explained that high school privileges were a right of the towns children under a State law. Each year showed an increase- of these. Last year they. numbered 26 and their net cost was $515 over that of the year before while the excess cost for Wilton school pupils was $283. Some one inquired as to whether the town was receiving any benefit from the Gilbert bequest to the union school district comprised of portions of Bedding and Wilton and now made an independent district by an act of the legislature. The an swer was that the income from this fund was being applied in accordance with the intent Of its author, this fn- tent being to increase the schools eff
 1ciency, and capacity and not directly to put money into the pockets of any of the towns interested. MT. Pinkney closed by saying that his committee knew of no way to retrench in their department without tmpairing the eff fciency of the local educational sys- tenn. When he concluded his remarks the $6, 600 asked for was voted with apparent scheerfnlness and no dissent ing voice.
 A resolution offered by SeIectman Barnes provided that the assessors should this year notify all property owners of the amount of their tax valuation. He explained that the law now required such notice only in in stances where the valuation was rais- ed and he thought it would be we'll to make it general There had been complaints, he added, that the assess ors failed last year to- give in some cases the notice required by law and consequently property owners who would otherwise have sought reduc- tions from the board of relief founo they were too late. S. C. Shaw re- marked that the board might just as well notify all parties as they had plenty of spare ttrne- Considering, 1 however, that the assessors last year made up a grand list of more than | $156Oo,000 in ten. days and also to some extent made personal inspec- lions of property it would seem as If 1 they could not have had many idle moments. The resolution was adopt l ed after it had received an amend l vtding that this year the assessors should this year view all the property on which they placed valuations
 Some one inquired if the seIectmen had been complying with the reso1u- 1 tion adopted a. dozen years back re-