Perth Amboy evening news., 1921-09-15

sidered by the voters at the coming election
when voting for q state senator and assembly
men. They declare that under the ruling from
the attorney generals office the county Boards
Of Frecholders. under the county roads law
ARE restricted to advertising for one type OF
pavement and cannot legally advertise for al
ternate bids on different pavements."
This is just the law that Senator Parry. OF
Essex county, fought so hard to have amended
last year, but was defeated by the lobby of the
patent pavement interests. Senator Parry would
have open specifications on all bidding for high
way avement He is going to make the fight
again at the coming session of the Legislature
and it is up to Middlesex county to send men to
Trenton who will back him UP in this effort.
such a law is outrageous and is tying up the
state to the patent pavement trust.
If the Board of Freeholders had the best in
terest of the taxpayers at heart they would not
submit to such d~ictation. If the law %unjustly
restricted them to but one type of pavement
when advertising for bids they ought to look
about for the best type available and If they
found that a type not controlled by any patent
was giving excellent service and could be built
TOR less money than the patent variety, they
ought to urge with all their influence the type
not controlled by the patent pavement trust
and give the people the advantage of the saw
ing at the same time showing their contempt for
such methods as have been put over at Trenton.
There is no question that IL the freeholdcrs
pointed out to the petitioners who asked for
road improvement that concrete. while giving as
good, IL not better, service than any other va
riety, could be laid more cheaply, the property
owners, where any preference was shown at all,
would readily agree to concrete. On the con-
trary, however, the policy Of the freeholders has
always appeared to be in favor of the patent
material ignoring the saving that might other
wise be brought about.
The freeholders, in their statement speak
about the severe traffic that the county roads are
to and declare that "the county mas
overburdened itself by taking over roads that
should be more properly maintained by munich
nalities." AS a matter of fact, the severe traffic
that the freeholders speak of is confined almost
exclusively to the roads that the state has taken
over from the county, thereby relieving the
of all the expense of the upkeep and
ma maintenance. This includes the Lincoln high
wav from the county line at Railway all the
way through to New Brunswick; from new
Brunswick all the way to the Mercer county
the state had taken over two OF the most
important highways-the road from New
Brunswick through Franklin Park to Kingston
and the road from New Brunswick to Cranbury.
Furthermore, the state has taken over the otner
heavily travelled road which leads across the
county from the county line at Railway to the
Monmouth county line near Keyport. Besides,
Lhe state has taken over the maintenance of the
most expensive bridges here and at New
Brunswick, that were a tremendous drain on
the taxpayers of the county. Being relieved
this tremendous burden the freeholders
ought easily to be able to care Tor the COM
paratively short stretches of highway that the
has taken over in several municipalities
and still have money to spare. On the contrary
in spite of this relief that the state has given.
expenditures of the freeholders are greater
than they were before the state lifted such a
heavy burden from the shoulders of Middlesex
county taxpayers.
This attempt on the part of the Board OF
to escape responsibility for the ex-
handling of the taxpayers money by
saying that they have given the people what
they wanted will not stand close analysis. In
the first place, they have not always given the
people what they wanted and. in the second
place, the people have not always wanted what
the freeholders have given them, but have
deemed 1t wise to take what they could get ana
saw nothing rather than run the risk of being
Told that there were no funds this year for the
improvement they desired.
AS we said at the beginning, there is more
nrl. DAarl of Trao-
holders have proven themselves past MASTERS
in several different ways OF forcing upon Inc
county high priced. patent pavemehts'