New Britain herald., 1916-05-27
T0u,n Topics

Soon a charter revision committee
 will be meeting weekly, devisfng
 schemes for so changing the city
 charter that it's management may be-
 come more effective and it be made a
 better place in which to live. One of
 the first charter changes that will be
 considered will probably be the divid- | ing of the present safety board into a fire and police commission, instead of l having both departments under the 1 one supervision. Boosters for the
 idea claim, and seemingly wisely, that one board of three men cannot de-
 vote sufficient time to the city gratis
 to take the proper supervision of both
 branches of public service. With a l separate board for each, one commis-
 sion would have nothing to do but devise plans for increasing the cffi- i ciency of it's own department. It has l been said that a man cannot serve ! two masters and inverse1y it might be l said a small commission cannot satis- ! factOrily govern two big departments. 1 TWO years ago this matter was brought ! up and passed the common council. i When it went to the legislature for l approval as a charter change Repre- sentative E. c. Goodwin opposed it on
 the ground that it was a political scheme of Mayor Quigley whose aim
 was to create more appointive posi- tiOnS to strengthen himself. The is- i sue was lost.
 Some new plan of taxation will also ! come in for consideration with the : charter changes. With the idea of i having the assessors devote their en- | tire time will come the suggestion to do away with the two taxing dis
 tj.irt SiStr iot evolved a number of years ago to in- l duce those living on the outside to i vote for town and city consolidation, 1 the argument being that with consoli- datiOn and two taxing districts the tax rate in the suburbs would be less. A charter change will be proposed doing away with the two districts and pro- Viding for property assessment on ac- tual valuation. There seems to be no i logical reason why there should be two taxing districts. People living in the second district have just as many city advantages as those in the first with the exception of police protec- ton, and in the first district there are sections no better off. The second dis trict people have schools, fire protec- tiOn, city water, gas, electricity, side ! walks and roads the same as those
  sewers they can be had by the usual method of assessment as in the first district. If the two districts should be abolished 1t would be eminently more fair to all. The same tax rate on value would mean that a man own ing a fifty foot lot on Grove Hill would pay tax on that lot commen- surate With it's real value while a man owning the same sized lot on Osgood Hill, for instance, would pay on what that is worth Thus every property owner would be paying his fair proportion of taxes with favor shown towards none.
 While it is not probable that it will ever come before the charter re- vision committee, some democrats have been advocating a plan to elect cOuncilmen and aldermen at large rather than from wards. They base their argument on the ground that democrats living in the first, second, third and fourth wards are practically disenfranchised as regards electing their city representatives to the council These wards are so strong ly republican that their little demo- cratic vote has no bearing on the out come. By electing at large. they could pool their interest and stand bet ter chance of success.
 While practical, their scheme is not altogether feasible, however, for it WOrkS out that a man elected from a certain district will look after the in terests of his own district much more 'cnergetiCally than those of another A man elected at large would have much to take up his mind and could not as well confine his attentions to
 ;,-;I, ward man has more personal inter- est in his own ward, whereas he is not particularly interested about something in the other end of the city.
 With the agitation concerning the smoke nuisance in this city should be registered another complaint: that of the factory whistle nuisance. This does not refer to the whistles announce ing the time to begin and cease daily | labors but to the shrill signal whistle used most offensively, and almost en- tircly, by the Vulcan Iron Works. l This concern, located on John street | and in the heart of a residential dis trlct, is the only one in the city that | uses a whistle to call various foremen and employees to the main office. When a foreman is wanted at the office the | factory whistle, and it is most shrill, l Scfeechlng One is footed certain 1 number of times. Each man has a number which is sounded when he is wanted. The whistle is sufficiently loud to be heard a half mile away l and residents within a wide radious are neodlessly annoyed by it. It l blows almost increasingly from | O'CiOck m the morning until o'clock |