Arizona republican., 1915-10-22
(Umeem@@red Sense
 and Nonsense
By Remlik)

| The main thoroughfares of Phoenix ought to be paved They ought to be 1 narrowed to at least forty feet. possloly less, and the surplus width divided be- tween the side pathways, or thrown into parking in the center of the street Many of the residence streets in i Kansas City, Missouri, have eighteen feet of paving on each side with central park. There is no occasion for | wide pavement, except in the business | district or on a boulevard.
 1 When a good many streets are paved, | traffic is so divided that there is no | occas asion for wide driveways. Very ! few streets of Phoenix require over thirty feet of paving and none over forty, save in the business portion of l the city.
 | Portions of several of the main | streets of Phoenix require paving right
 now. How are you going to do it? Or, | have you any idea that you CAN do | it? I have NOT.
 l If you are going to do this work you l had better get new plan for bringing 1 it about-unless you want to go ahead 1 and fight it out and talk about FORC- i ING the property owners, and all that old time stuff-just because you know l i4O better way DttduSt they UO IL III ct | certain way in Kentucky, or Kansas or that dear California is no reason why ] you have to do it that way HERE. i Why should paving not be paid for I by the city, out of the general fund, just l as sewers are paid for? A taxpayer who lives at Twelfth and Culver must pay his portion for a sewer constructed at Seventeenth avenue and the city | limits and he 6eriyaS no benefit from, | the sewer whatever
 Suppose that an ordinance was passed. or a law in some way made | that would bring paving under the gen. eral tax plan. Then suppose, further that a paving board was appointed, the members being selected from all over the city, and this board given author ity to pave the streets, which in their judgment, required paving. They should then be empowered to either let contracts or to order the work done by the city and tax EVERYBODY in order to pay for it.
 You say the people would object ? The majority would NOT. They would know that when their own streets NEEDED pavement-they would get it and that the other fellow would have to help pay for it. Why shouldn't ev- erybOdy pay for it-everybody uses it all the time
 Aside from that, the Culver street man derives not one cents benefit from the Seventeenth avenue sewer though he could go over there and drive all over a pavement that he helped to pay for.
 This plan would eliminate all the grief. feeling. protests, politics and the gen eral warfare and loss of friendship that always accompanies a paving proposi- ton. As it is now, a few men. non- progressive. non resident. or otherwise may get together and stir up enough trouble to knock out a paving project 1 oven If they are in a minority.
 If 9 proper law was made a city law made by the commission and a paving board such as I have mentioned. aD- folnted and given authority to select district and order it paved. by con- 1 tract or otherwise l believe the paving | matter would be well taken care of.
 Paving contracts should not be let the city should do the work itself. sav- | ing the profit which goes to the con tractor Proper management can al ways be secured for this class of work and there is no reason why the con- |
 
 the city. The property owner wouId | md that his paving would cost him | less than It does in the present man | her. and the work would be better.
 NO very great outlay is necessary TOT paving equipment and if you want | to get some paving done here in Phoe- | nlX you have got to get hold of q diff | Ierent method from the one of MAX 1 ING the property owners along a street | pay for the paving you put on it.
 1T would be unWise to empower a l courcI or commission to act as tho l board, because there are too many who believe that such boards are cornnosad | ol grafters-they think they are BORN | that Way-that they don't care how the l money IS eXpended-it will require q | special board-reOrganize annually.
 we should not own that we do not care | to change or improve our methods iust | Decause our ancestors worked on the | same plan. The WORST feature is | that when you tell a man he's GOT to !, uo thlnS you are not going to make | FRIEND out of him-these Ameri l cans don't know the words GOT TO | anyway and the sooner you get away | rom that FORCE talk-the sooner vou 1 will make progress. Let's try a NEW l way, when we find the OLD way ROT TEN. PHOENIX needs PAVEMENT not all over it-but SOME and tbero is way to GET it. If you know q RET IEt Wal let us hear about it-the bfS Way IS what We are looking for 0T nnAHNNrn 0r