The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1921-03-17
A LITTLE MORE HISTORY.
Continued from page y

amount which the city should pay,
and recommended to the council that
they deemed it advisable to pay this
claim in order to escape an expensive
law suit. The council, acting in
this matter, ordered the claim paid,
an dthe report of the committee ac-
cepted, by a vote of ten to two, ac-
ording to the records of the council
meeting of Feb. 1st, but after a
lengthy speech by the mayor, COM
pletely reversed themselves at the
meeting of the council held on Feb.
18th and corrected the minutes OF
that meeting, and the Mayor in his
last issue accused the acting City
Clerk of Juggling the records" in
order to force the payment of the
claim. The clerk certainly had
nothing whatever to do with the little
slips of paper handed out by the
Mayor before the meeting of Feb.
10th containing a correction for the
minutes.
1t is safe to say that the tax
payers who have acquainted them
selves with the question at issue
cannot longer be 'bunked" by the
Mayor. When the committee re-
ported that a settlement should be
made with the Construction company
in order to avoid expensive litigation
ON the basis of the company throw
ing off $3.50 of the amount OF the
claim. the Mayor reported that he
had offered to settle the matter by
(sssoaking'') assessing the taxpayers
of Washburn $3.50 of the assessment,
charging $3.50 to the ten property
owners who brought the suit to have
the assessment set aside, and charg-
ing $500 back to the contractors,
claiming they had already been paid
enough and this he cannot refute.
The Times. the members OF the
Council committee who made the re-
port. and the Acting City Clerk, are
inst as interested in this matter as
is the Mayor and his two lieutenants
Thompson and Bryan, but they want
to see the City officers quit playing
politics and get down to business and
remember that they are spending the
taxpayers money and not their own.
They ought to remember that the
taxpayers are not interested in the
personal grudges of any of these
officers.
If the former Council who ordered
these sewers laid erred in their judy
ment in having them laid, the con-
tractors cannot be blamed for per-
forming the work called for in their
contract. 1t is a well known fact
that the Council was urged at that
time to construct the sewers, but be-
cause the war ended and the houses
in that section were dismanteled and
sold the present council is now at
tempting to repudiate the debt. We
do not blame the ten property own
ers for asking that the assessment be
set aside for that was their legal
right.
But when the News says the
Times failed to mention the report
of Raglan & Pearce showing that
the Water Company had been over
paid to the extent of $1799.69, they
commit deliberate falsehood, for In
our issue of March 3rd, second
column of Page l this was re-
ported, and the News received
copy of that issue, but the trouble
was the News editor and Mayor had
copies of these reports in his pos
session and because we beat him out
in reporting the same to the tax
payers, even though we did not re-
ceive copies of the report until the
following Monday, the News editor
waits two week and then tries to
buncho the public into believing that
we failed to publish this part of the
proceedings of the council, and sets
ND his usual howl of special inter-
ests" in order to blind the taxpayers,
who are much wiser than he News
editor gives them credit for being.
And why did the Mayor engage his
friend Raglan, of Minneapolis Ito
make an audit of the books of the
city clerk, school board and water
company at cost of $1734.80 of the
taxpayers money, when the motion
made by the Council and recorded on
Page Sal was "that the Mayor have
the power to install such system
of auditing accounts in said office"
when the Tax Commission offered to
install this system for approximate
" $4,000. And why is it that the
supplementary report for which the
taxpayers have already paid their
good money, is still not on file in
the Office of the City Clerk, when it
was ordered so filed by the Council.
The attempt to build up case
against the school board proved to
be an utter failure, and the auditors
were forced to admit in their report
shat the records Of the school board
were far above the average school
records found in a city of this size"
The Mayors committee that visited
L Il.