The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1919-11-20
BONDS OR NO BONDS

bond issue of one and balf
million dollars will double the value
of land in Marion county. l refuse to
believe that it will even add % per
cent. to the value of our lands.
In the first place, the whole bond
issue, one and half million dollars,
with all the outside money that bond
advocates tempt US with, will not
make the roads we are promised.
Doubtless we will get the Dixie High
way, upon which it is proposed to
spend one-third of the total bond is
sue, but the remaining million, to
cover the roads contemplated, and !
which the people living along those F.
roads expect. cannot make roads of I.
sufficient width and Of lasting char .
acter under present conditions. We
will then owe one and a half millions .
dollars and have a good Dixie High /
way road, the rest of the roads of in !
sufficient width and poor character. !
In a word, just such a makeshift. ex-
pensive and poor set of roads as we !
are now familiar with.
Is there any man who can ever run |
q two-horse farm today and hire it !
done. as conditions now are? We are |
face to face with actual conditions of !
high cost of everything and no labor. |
Is it any argument at all to ask us
wheE these conditions will change? |
Would you put to sea in a leaking |
boat simply because you could not get !!
a better one, when you could stay on
dry land in safety? Are you going to |
vote a bond issue in the face of what |
your common sense tells you, merely |
because some bond advocate asks you |
when conditions will get better? Re-
member, you can put off this bond is |
sue for year. for two years, for
whatever time you please, and vote a
bond issue when you get ready, but If
you vote it now and find your million |
and half of dollars wasted you can
not undo the matter. You will have |
to stand it. Grin and pay taxes. And
how much are those taxes going to
be?
Under the proposed bond issue you
will pay interest on 375 bonds for
ten years amounting to $187, 500; 375
bonds for Is years amounting to
$281 $50, and on $50 bonds for twenty
years amounting to S750,00O, a total
of one million two hundred and eight
.eGn thousand seven hundred and fifty
dollars, and in addition pay the bonds
themselves, one million five hundred
thousand dollars. making total Of
two million seven hundred and eight
zee nthousand seven hundred and fifty
dollars. Do not let anybody tell you
that your taxes will not be very much
increased. Your 1919 county tax, all
told, outside of the sub-schools, is
twenty-one and a half mills. yielding
.$167,420. You will have to be taxed,
in addition mind you, to pay off your
bonds and interest, and this will come
TO on an average about $135,937 a
year. In addition, remember. to what
you are now paying.
Your taxes will not be doubled, but
it looks to me as though they would
be increased over 80 per cent. They
tell us that we are going to loan part
OF our bond money to the banks, but
am figuring on what we will have 70
be taxed. and what we know we will
have to pay. whether we loan our
money or not.
Ask yourself right. here a question.
sit down quietly and put some hard
thinking into it. Are we, when we
have mortgaged our county up TO the
eyes, because that is what we are
facing, are we going to get under the
conditions that stare US in the face,
anything like the system of roads
that bond men would have us believe?
I absolutely refuse to believe that we
will, except the Dixie Highway. We
have a plain object lesson right in our
own county. The Dunnellon district
put out bond issue of $4,000 and
confidently named a system of roads
they would build. They got their
bond money. spent their bond money,
and with their money gone, utterly
failed to build their roads as propos-
ed. Prices had gone up. Conditions
had changed and conditions are worse
now and getting worse. would like
tc suggest a compromise. Vote down
this bond issue Let the people liv-
ing along the Dixie Highway, say for
two miles or three miles or whatever
width is best, on either side of the
Dixie Highway, from the Alachua
county line above Mcintosh to the
Lake county line below Weirsdale,
and going through Ocala, constitute
that territory into sub-road district
and vote bonds in that district and
build the best Dixie Highway in Flor
ida, through Marion county, and turn
it over to the state for maintenance
for all time. because the state will
take it when done. Then later, the
rest of the county can take like action
if deemed best. You have got to
figure on a certain amount of waste,
OF certain amount of graft, in
handling a million and half dollars.
Conditions are worse than they have
ever been. They are getting worse.
Everybody admits it. What earthly
loo AhnA h. IL