The log cabin Democrat., 1920-03-02
EVIDENCE FAILS 10
 INVOLVE LEvERETT
AT HEARING BY COUNCIL
Only One Witness Testifies and His Charges are Characterised as
 Amounting to Nothing.

No charges of any consequences were brought against Supt. E. V. Lev erett or any other official or employe of the municipal light and water plant at the hearing held by the Conway city council late yesterday afternoon, and, while formal resolution to that effect was not presented, the general impression is that the hearing amount ed to an exoneration of the superln- tendent of charges which have oeen circulated through street gossip and other means recently.
 Although Mayor w. D. Cole re- peatedly called upon the 50 or 75 per sons attending the meeting to present any information they might have as to irregularities in the management of the plant, no one responded, and the only witness examined was Doss Wright, fireman at the light plant. Wright was called before the council on account of the statement by Chair man Harrell Gist of the light and water committee at previously meet ing that Wright had supplied the com mittee with valuable information in it's investigation and was the only employe of the plant from whom the committee had been able to secure in- formation.
 After some barley as to the manner of conducting the investigation, Wright was asked to tell what he knew about any encouragement of the plant by LeVerett or any one else. He answer ed that Leverett had frequently sent Crite Turner, engineer of the plant, to R. B. McCullochs plant to assist in repair of machinery, and had also sent him to work on the heating plants of the State Normal and Hendrix Col lege, but that he had heard Turner say he had never lost days pay since he had been working for the plant In reply to further questions he said if Leverett knew anything of the shunted meter connections alleged to have been he (Wright) did not know it. He said Max Marble, who was the man who drew the plat of the pipe connections, had told him Leverett knew nothing of it. Wright also testified that this constituted all the charges which he knew against Leverett.
 Superintendent Leverett made a short statement in which he admitted that he had often allowed members of his force to assist other industrial plants of this city in emergencies with out charging them, but that these plants had reciprocated and had con- tributed fully as much assistance to the city plant as the latter had given them. 1t was a common practice, he said, among the plants of the city to help each other out in times of acci- dent or emergencies. As to Turner's services on the college heating plants. Leverett said the light plant received $25 for this work, as would be shown by the books of the plant.
 Leverett said he was anxious for thorough investigation of the plants management, either by a grand jury or otherwise, and wanted to do noth- ing to interfere with the committees probe of the matter. He said he thought his record would speak for itself, that he had given the plant the best he knew how and that the electric current had been shut down only two hours in the 10 years he had been here.
 No other witness was examined and little else of interest was brought out at the hearing. Chairman Gist stat cd that the committee was pursuing it's investigation IS rapidly as possible and denied that any attempt was being made to ''pass the buck" to the next council. He said final report would be made in the near future In an- swer to the question if anything had been uncovered which would incrm- mate Leverett, he said that the com ho,1