Imperial Valley press., 1916-09-29

so much waste paper But this would
not be all.
Unhappily your Board is divided on
nearly all important matters before it,
or likely to come before it soon, and
should Mr.. Hamilton be recalled and
his place taken by another man the
same division would still exist Dur
ing the coming year it will probably
be necessary for the Board to borrow
money for contemplated work to in
sure us against water shortage next
sue bonds. Should a recall take place
upon an insufficient petition, after
you had gone to thousands of dollars
of expense in getting land owners sig
natures and having bonds printed the
bondholders' attorneys would examine
into the proceedings and would exam
/ inc the proceedings whereby the men
were elected to Office who pretended
to authorize the bonds, Or if it was a
loan of money, they would examine
the proceedings to see whether or not
the proper officers of the District had
authorized the proceedings for the
borrowing Of the money. Should they
upon the examination Of those pro-
ceedings find that member whose
vote was necessary to those proceed
| 81 1ad
election which was not held upon a
sufficient recall petition the entire
proceedings would fall to the ground
and there might thereby be caused
delay which would cost the Valley
millions of dollars. It is only short
time since the entire proceedings Of
the San Fernando District were de-
clared void and it's entire bond issue
! fell to the ground causing them many
thousands of dollars loss. When
these matters come to be looked into
by bond attorneys and by the attor-
neys of each of those who are loan
ing money it does not matter what
kind Of construction Judge Haines or
I give to the statute. They will insist
upon giving it strict construction and
will insist that the election is no good
unless the requirements of law are
carried out.
The provisions of the statute in this
case require that while the signatures
to recall petition need not all be ap-
pended to one paper each such sepa-
rate paper shall have attached there
to an affidavit made by an elector OF
the District stating that the affiant
circulated that particular paper and
saw written signatures appended
thereto, and that according to the best
information and belief of affiant each
is the genuine signature of the person
whose name purpOrts to be thereunto
subscribed, and that it is the sigma
ture of qualified elector Of the Dis
trict. In this case the affidavit which
/ is attached to the petition is very
sloppishly drawn and instead of fol-
lowing the plain language of the stat
ute the attorney tried to substitute
, language of his own which he evident
! ly thought would be just as good. In
stead of making the affiant swear that
he is an elector, the affidavit says that
he is ''citizen and vOter;'' instead
of saying in the language of the stat
ute that the affiant circulated that par
tcular paper it says that he circulat-
ed 1.-THE within petition for the recall
of w. o. Hamilton" l have not even
examined the matter to see whether
or not voter and electOr are exact le'
gal equivalents but even il l should
conclude that they were practically
the same thing the attorney for some
bond buyer or banker with whom you
might do business hereafter might
come to a different conclusion and
from his decision there would be no
appeal | might also conclude that
although the recall petition consists of
number of papers bound together
that in legal contemplation all of
those separate papers might be held
to constitute one paper but | have no
assurance that the attorneys with
whom you may be obliged to deal in
the future will agree with me. In ad-
clifton there is no statement whatever
in the affidavit to the effect that the
signatures are all the signatures OF
qualified electors of the District. A
clumsy attempt is made at such allie
cation by the statement in the aftida-
Wit, that the signature is the genuine
signature of the electOr whose name
is attached thereto and by all legal
rules of construction this is not a
statement or equivalent to a state
ment that the persons who signed
their names thereto are electors OF
| he District