Honolulu star-bulletin., 1917-03-07

/ heard. OF which he Is chairman. last
! In brief. these were the develop
ments:
/ He attacked the reports Of the COM
mtttee of engineers who investigated
Piers s, . and 10 in his absence on the
mainland.
| He declared them impracticable un.
der the circumstances and too costly
for the result they are designed to
obtain.
He criticized. by inference and sev-
eral times directly the reports and
the computations of the investigating
board. repeatedly limiting that he be-
/ lieves the work they did entirely in-
adequate for tie $4,000 fee charged by
the three.
/ Hesengaged in several heated verbal
! passages with the engineers. particu-
tlarly with Giles H. Gere, one OF the
! three. and to lesser extent with
Carl B. Andrews and George W. Arm
itage, the other two.
Contradicting the findings of the
investigating board. the chairman SUBJ
mitted to the board an entirely new
scheme Tor the construction Of Pier
the pier of the now-famous bulge. :
/ This new scheme. he told the board,
! had been worked out by himself and
Ithe engineers of his department
| This plan. he declared. would cost
less by slS03 than the plan lately ap-
proved by the board-the Gere plan.
Forbes Is contradieted
Forbes statement on this was con-
ltradicted by the engineers. who said
i that while they are not prepared to
| pass offhand on the details OF his
scheme, his figuring of the compare
tive cost Is unfair and unsound.
Forbes made ii plain that he backs
| this new scheme and Is determined to
have Il adopted in place Of the Gere
plan. which the board approved IN
/ his absence and on which the con-
! tractor was ordered to proceed.
I'm action and In words he made Y
iplain that he believes the findings OF
the investigating board are reflection
Hpon HIM and his sengineering kn0wl-
isedge and that he win not submit to
this criticism.
Results Of Meeting
The definite results of the meeting
! last night were mainly two-fold:
|. BY motion the board asked all
the engineers OF the investigating
board to submit all of their available
data worked up in their investigation.
Forbes having demanded this on the
groind that the data should be check
ed over.
2. BY motion the board directed the
chairman to instruct the contractor,
Lord-Young Engineering Company. to
proceed Immediately with work on
Pier 10, but that IN the work a suction
Edredge shall not be used.
Work on Pier 9 Is halted while the
controversy over the alternative pans
is being fought out.
The barring Of use Of the suction
dredge is result of the various
charges that this dredging was part
~ responsible for imBairing the pier
work under investigation.
Two Hour Session 10 Tense
incident piled on incident in the
tw0-heur session last night II was
held in the harbor board room and
was a public session. Those present
OF the harbor board were Chairman
Forbes. Commissioners Wakefield.
Mccarthy and Mcclellan. Commits
sioner Church was unable to be pre-
sent.
By Invitation the investigating
board-Andrews. Armitage and Gere
was also present. Aside from these,
there were some engineers and sub
ordinates of the public works depart
ment and a representative Of the star
Bulletin.
To grasp clearly the significance Of
last nights meeting. it might be
briefly brought back to mind that the
investigating board rendered major
ity and minority report Messrs An
drews and Armitage rendered the first
and Gee tie minority report, and the
board approved the latter and ordered
work to proceed on 1t. When Forbes
returned rom the mainland. he object
ed to this Immediately and work has
been stopped on Pier g.
AssaiIs Ceres Computations
At the opening of the session last
night Forbes handed around some
yellow sheets on which was a good
deal of figuring. He said these repre-
sented Engineer Ceres computations.
Gere had not yet come in, and Forbes
said these would be taken up later.
He asked Armitage and Andrews II
they had checked over Ceres figures
and each others computations and
received the answer that In a general
way this had been done
From the beginning Forbes referred
frequently to what he termed the lack
OF data furnished the harbor board BY
the investigating engineers. After
Gere came In. this was reverted to.
Forbes virtually demanded that Gere
furnish all the figures he had and
Gere said his office was torn up
temporarily. but he would do what he
could Armitage said he would see
about" furnishing his computations.
"That $3eO0'
Forbes sharply reminded both that
they had been "weIl paid" and GeTe
said, "That $4,000 seems to be worry
ing you, Mr.. Forbes"
ct is" shot out the chairman.
He then asked the board to pass q