Arizona republican., 1919-09-24
ATTEMPT TO PUT
 ROAD UPKEEP IN HANDS
Supervisors Association Does Not Pass Motion, However Leaves It in Hands of Various Coun- ties to Ask of Maddox = Other Business

An attempt to turn over the main tenance of the state highways in each county to it's county engineers was made yesterday at the closing session of the two days conference of the state supervisors office held in this city.
 The motion was made by Miles of Gila. who proposed that Thomas Mad dock. the state engineer, be required to deputize the county engineer in each county as his representative to act ln place of a division engineer. MT. Miles stated that he believed the county engineers were better qualified 10 handle the maintenance of the roads with which they were familiar and the expenditure of the 75 per cent road fund for maintenance.
 Charles Roberts of Cochise, the chairman, asked J. R. Bradshaw of Maricopa to. take the chair and led the discussion in favor of the state highway maintenance being taken over by the counties. He had strong op- position from Maricopa, Pima an1 other counties and it was he who if nally modified the motion by request ing" rather than requiring" the state engineer to deputize the county engi- neers. After a lengthy discussion, the motion was withdrawn with the un- derstanding that it would be put to the state engineer by the separate boards should they so desire MT. Maddock was not present at the morning session but was in attendance in the afternoon although road mat ters did not come under discussion. Roberts held a whispered conference with Maddock late in the day but the nature of the discussion was not made public. On leaving, Mir. Roberts stated that he could only speak for his own county, which would make the formal request to the state engineer to place the maintenance of state highways in the hands of the county.
 Thinks State Should Control
 ". K. Bowen of Maricopa took a different attitude, declaring that in his opinion, all money collected by the state for road purposes should be under the control of the state highway department.
 T When county after county declared a willingness to keep the maintenance in the hands of the state department, declaring the maintenance had been "A No. l. and that no controversy had arisen with the state engineer in their counties, Mir Roberts said that he had no intention of stepping on ? anyone's toes, but that he had made q very proper request fer mutual benefit.
 It was held by the larger counties that their engineers had all they could , do to attend to county work exclus- lyely and one who was present. Lane of Pinal, spoke of the difficulty of t5 units being able to handle the work as | satisfactorily as one unit. He praised the work that was being done by the state highway department, which was handling the situation better he. be > lieved, than it could otherwise oe maintained, and reminded the as- semblage that ns federal aid would . be allowed if the standard were low n cred.
 Question of Economy Tt is absurd to s;-y it is necessary n for the state to have charge of the maintenance when it is jointly en. d trusted to the state and county de clared Roberts. Neither is it a ques. tion of capability of the division engi. neer but merely question of econ omy"
 r. A. Nathan of Pima county dis
 agreed, claiming that the county coulC
 not maintain the roads as economicall,
 as the state. He claimed that tn
 engineer of his county could not talk,
 over any more work and Woolfolk 0
 Coconino was of the same opinion.
 If the state builds and the count, Il maintains, they will always be at log N gerheads," said Woolfolk. There wil
 be the question of how much to b
 expended on building and how mucj
 on maintaining"
 Its a question of divided authority a anyhow" volunteered Roberts.
 After two hours discussion. it wa II decided to let the counties determin t whether or not they cared to take tn k matter up with Maddock and act ac o cordingly.
 motion was passed to the effec Q that the state engineer be require
 to open bids for road construction re