The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-10-17

We had no intention to frighten MT. Gwin and are sorry that he refuses to attend our meeting. Our idea was only to give him fair chance to present his side of the question. We felt that the side that the grand jury took had been more clearly set out than the side which MT. Gwin represented. We realize that there are two sides to every argument.
 'It was nothing but natural that we should seek to be informed at the it is not mistake to use pneumatic tires, because tie saving on the cost of operation of the truck on pneumatic tires is more than offset by the work done by this truck, to say nothing of the amount saved on the depreciation of the truck operated on pneumatic tires against the one operated on solid tires.
 ROAD MACHINERY
 "The grand jury criticised Jerry Gwin | for buying $1 800 worth of road machinery without the consent of the other mem- 1 bers of the board of revenue. This is an
 untruth. The machinery was not bought l by the county. These are the facts: Jerry Gwin, in passing one of the camps.
 noticed a tractor which the county had | bought several months before was stand l lnE lQle. OpOu lIQulTy, ll W dS iSei .iS~A l by the foreman that he did not have any
 road machine to use behind this factor
 and that he was paying traction en- gineer $00 a month to stay idle. l ] at once ordered two road machines by | telegraph, as I was instructed by an- other foreman that he would need a
 machine in the next few days. did l tell one or two members of the board that I had ordered this machinery, but I fa,lttn Hf a board while in session. When the ma chinery came it was turned down by the | board three of the members voting against buying the machinery. In one months time after this board Of revenue ordered road machine from the same company and the same kind of machine' paying $37 more than the one l had or dered and allowing this traction engine
 to stand idle for more than sixty days,
 the use of which would have been worth l at least s20 day to the county. l will leave it 10 the taxpayers of this county if that is saving of the county s money.
 1 "It was charged by the grand jury | that Jerry Gwin O. K.'d some printing ! bills that went out of the tax col lector's office without competitive bids | This is absolutely false, and the grand l jury could have ascertained this by | had been o. K.'d and paid and filed
 away in the auditors office. According to this statement of the grand juy. l 1 would sav sFalsa ir o-e faise in all
 BATSON'S SALARY
 | ''There has been cutie considerable com l ment on the county highway engineer s 1 salary being raised from $4150 to 5000 l per year. Tn regard to this I will say | that one year ago last November. when
 we were fixing salaries. advocated 1 MT. Batscn's salary to be $5o0o year. As the board of revenue differed con- l siderahiv at that time in regard to Mir. 1 Tatson's sal-rv [ ec.,t telerrnr,s to At lanta, Ga, Dallas Tex, and Pittsburg, Pa inouiring the amount of money paid their chief engineer per year. and the amount os money spent under his super i vision F~np, Atlauta rece'vaa the re- ply of s5.lOo per year and they sper$ about l s70loO0 per wear under his supervision | From Dallas they paid their engineer sG.boO per year and spent over g. .n0o.ooa As we were spending at least s1. 5ooe0
 per year under the supervision of ou, | engineer I figured that his salary shoulf
 he at least s5,000. If any one will show me where any county or state is spendns
 s1, ,5o0oc0 per year and not paving thei < engineer at last sS,pN will be Yer,
 clad to sec that Mir. Ratsons salary i
 reduced to the amount paid by the low est county or state in the union. An
 other case of criticism without knowins facts
 FIVE MILLION BONDS
 The report of the grand jury also con demns the use of portion of the s5.Ooa0t
 bond issue voted by the people for new
 highways, and charge that same was uset for the payment of debts existing at th' time the issue was being voted on. ans rectes that while this did not constitut
 ,enrbezzlenent of public funds, that the ac ton of the board of revenue in this regar' } violated the trusts of the people,
 IT. reply to this. state positively tha , the funds realized by the sale of tn } bonds in question were not used for tn purpose of paying debts Of the count as alleged in said grand jury report