Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1918-01-17
SPECIAL ELECTION

City Council held Tuesday night that
body decided by unanimous vote to
submit to the electors Of Baxter
Springs at q special election to be cal
led in accordance to law, the follow
ing question:
Shall the City Of Baxter Springs Is
sue bonds in q sum sufficient to build
water works system?
Present ut the council meeting was
committee from the Chamber OF
Commerce composed of F. M. Perkins,
DR.. Boswell, o. NJ. Lynch, L. Richard
son, Chas. Wells and A. E. Pfremmer.
In obedience to the instructions Of the
directors of the Chamber Of Com
merce this committee first met and
considered the water situation in Bax-
ter from the standpoint Of private
ownership as well as from municipal
ownership side. An expert water en-
gineer was present and presented q
comparison of the two propositions.
It was strongly in favor Of public
ownership. He presented state statis-
tics to prove that in Kansas in May,
1916, out of 200 water plants in the
city all but 10 were owned by the peo-
pie, and with one OF two exceptions
all were paying running costs, main
tanning their plants, keeping up the
interest on the bonds and setting
aside money each year as a sinking
fund for taking up the bonds as they
became due. In short the municipal
water plant of the state of Kansas in
the aggregate is a paying investment,
and that with an average water SER
vice charge to the consumer of not
over one-half the rate exacted by the
privaae water company.
After carefully weighing the water
proposition the Chamber of Commerce
committee, by unanimous vote, adopt
ed resolution favoring a municipal
water plant for Baxter, such resolu-
ton to be presented to the city coun-
Gil as an expression from the Cham
Der of Commerce. The resolution in
substance, was as follows:
Resolved, that the Chamber of
Commerce requests the Honorable
City Council of Baxter Springs to call
q special election at as early a date
as possible to vote on the question Of
bonding the city of Baxter Springs
in a sum sufficient to install q new
water works system, and recommends
that such water works system, and
it's business, be placed in the hands of
a non-partisan commission Of three
persons, and that the water business
be conducted entirely separate and
apart from the other business Of the
city.
The resolution as above was pre-
sented to the council after which the
legal phaze, as affecting the city's re-
lations with the present water plant
was discussed, and referred to City
Attorney Waggoner for his opinion.
The resolution from the Chamber of
Commerce implied that the present
water plant should not be taken into
consideration in the building Of a new
plant, since it was supposed to be in
adequate and worn out and of no par
ticular value to the city.
Mr.. Waggoner expressed the opin-
ion that in building and operating an
entirely new plant the city would not
become involved in any way with the
present water company whose fran
chise has seven years yet to run.
Mr.. Waggoner pointed to the state
law which gives cities of the second
class the right to vote bonds for wa
ter works in a sum equal to Is per
cent of the total valuation of the city
The present valuation of Baxter is
about $1,O6O,OOO, and the amount of
bonds that can be voted is about
$4,000. That sum in the opinion of
Engineer Moore would be adequate at
this time to install first class water
plant, one that would give ample ser
vice and be in full compliance with in
surance rules relating to protection
against fire.
The special election will take place
some time in February. City Attorn-
ey Waggoner was instructed to pre-
pare an ordinance to that effect to be
passed at the next council meeting
Tuesday night,