The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1918-09-03

without giving US any security that
the manufacture of junk will not con-
tinue.
Another thing that the council
should do is to elect city manager.
Mr.. Caldwell has told several of his
friends that he was going to resign.
He should resign and the council
should accept his resignation. Fore
ing the Office on him has been the
worst piece of camouHage the city
government has been guilty of since
we have been here. Mr. Caldwell
has more than he can do in looking
after the city plant and the system
of electric wires and water pipes. He
has not sufficient assistance to enable
him to attend to this, unless every
thing was working without break.
At present he is acting as night en-
gineer, besides putting in full time
in the day. The other night he show
ed the writer a stack of correspond
ence about the plant that would take
several hours to clear away His
election was an evasion of the char
ter, and the council should undo its
foolish act. 1t has been found by ex-
perience in this and other towns that
the best aldermen are business and
professional men with some property
interests. Experience has developed
the fact that while such men make
good representatives, they are too
busy with their own affairs to make
good executives. So the city mana
ger plan was evolved. In our city,
the manager was to attend all the
time to the work the councilmen could
hardly find time to do in part of
their time. But the evasion of the
charter gives US for city manager
man who already has two mems work
to do, and who by the way is breaking
himself down trying to do it.
The entire town is suffering from
the lack of business management.
There used to be nine councilmen and
by dividing up the work they could
look after city affairs with reasonable
efficiency. Now there are only FIVE,
with one or two off the job all the
time, and it is only necessary to
look at the dilapidated condition of
the streets and everything else to see
how the work is not being done
The council should find out why
there was such inferior water pres
sure at the Hall fire last week. This
fire reduced the taxable property of
the city by some forty or fifty thou
sand dollars. and therefore hurt eve
ry taxpayer in town. Moreover, what
happened once can happen again.
There are number Of residences in
the city at about the same elevation,
and most of them belong to men less
able to stand the loss than Mr.. Hall
was. When the matter is investigat-
ed, it will probably be found that the
utter WEAKNESS from overwork of
some city employee was the reason for
slack water pressure at the time of
the fire.
We doubt that the council pays any
attention to any of our suggestions,
altho three of the members have
agreed with us in some of them. But
when the next election arrives they
will find that the mass of the people
have paid attention.
There is one thing more that we
will call the attention of the council
and all other taxpayers to. Some
people have said that because the
Star criticised the city plant of late
that it had gone over to the side of
the Florida Power Company. We shall
not dispute the charge. Anybody can
believe it that wants to. But we wish
to impress on the people this fact
which many Of them already realize.
The manner in which our public af-
fairs is being conducted is forcing
the city into the hands of the power
company. Every instance of ram
shackle management, every break
down at the plant, plays into the
hands of the owners and managers of
the company. If the present perform
ance keeps up, we will have to take
their power some day at their own
terms, or we will have to put up with
vast Inconvenience and expense while
building new plant. Either will
stack up taxes and rates until only
the very rich or the very poor can
afford to live in Ocala.