The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1916-05-05
THE BONDING QUESTION

Another Southeast Missouri county
has shown it's faith in the good road
movement that is taking on renewed
activity. Last Saturday Wayne
county, by five to vote, carried
the proposition to bond itself for
100000 for road construction and
improvement. Isn't it full time for
st. Francois County to stir itself in
this matter? What is to be gained
by delay, for it must come at last if
we would hold a creditable place
among the progressive and public
spirited counties of the State?
Wayne is a small county, with
population of but little more than
$4,000 and an assessed valuation of
taxable wealth of only 1891, 249. st,
Francois county has population of
over $4,000, more than double that of
Wayne county, an assessed valuation
of wealth approximating S14,000,-
900, or three and half times greater
than that of Waynes county, and the
largest and wealthiest lead mining in
dustry in the world besides rich and
prosperous farming and live stock
raising community. Yet Wayne
throws out her hands and shouts to
US, "Come on in, boys, the waters
fine and the season is upon you"
County Court is in session this week.
You can't get up your petition for
bond issue election and present it to
the court for action to-day; but the
court meets on the first Monday of
each month, and by the first Monday
in June you can have your petition
ready, What are you waiting for?
Bestir yourselves, you good roads
people Put some good hustlers in
the field and start them out with pc
titions for signers in every town and
township. We believe the people are
ripe for the movement, and two or
three days active work would secure
a petition with many more names
than the law requires. Get it in shape
and present it to the court at its adj
journed term on the first Monday of
June asking the submission of bond
issue of $25O,O0O to the voters of the
county.
Don't hesitate over the question of
taxes. Your road tax will not or
ought not to be increased single
cent should the proposition carry
and we have no doubt that it would
carry by good legal majority of ov-
er two-thirds. AS we told you last
week, you are now paying road tax
which, together with the revenue de-
rived from other sources for road pur-
poses, creates a sufficient sum to pay
the interest on bonded Indebtedness
of $250,000 and leave a surplus of
10000 or more for sinking fund each
year with which to pay off the bonds.
Did you look over the annual state
ment of the receipts and expenditures
of the county published last week in
The Times and several other county
papers? By that statement you may
see that there was raised from current
taxes and other sources of revenue
over $4,000 for road purposes, be-
sides more than $4,000 raised by pri-
vate subscription for work on certain
roads. Of this amount $2,882.46
came from dramshop licenses-which
for the moral good and well being of
the county we will not receive this
year-but leaving that out, the road
fund of 1915 amounted to about $751;
600. The interest on S250,000 in
bonds at per cent would be $4,000,
leaving approximately $4,000 for a
sinking fund to apply to the principal
of the bonds. This year, however, the
assessed valuation Of the county has
been raised to approximately $14,-
100000, so that the aggregate rev.
enue from road taxes will be larger
than it was last year, and would Gre
ate even a larger sinking fund.
1t may be clearly seen from this
that bonding the county need not in
crease the taxes; in fact, the road tax
might be lowered to 20 cents on the
hundred dollars valuation and then
raise sufficient revenue to ray the
on s250,000 in bonds and
leave $4,000 for sinking fund. The