The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1922-01-05
AGAIN THE PROPOSITION
FOR A COUNTY ENGINEER

A number Of our enterprising citi-
zens called upon the county commits
sioners Wednesday morning and urg-
ed upon them the necessity of select
ing an engineer and putting him In
charge of all the road work in Mar
ion. The commissioners took the
proposition into consideration and
may act upon it.
The selection of an engineer and
putting under his control all the road
force and material in the county has
been brought up several times before,
and has always been knocked in the
head, generally by selfish interests
that were more powerful than the
public welfare. The county had an
engineer once, and he was dismissed
for the very quality that should have
won him praise-namely, he tried to
save public money for the entire
county instead of scattering it among
the various localities. Had he been
retained and allowed to work accord
ing to modern methods, we would now
have much better roads and somewhat
lighter taxes.
The present system Of dividing the
road funds and road forces among the
different commissioner districts has
been handed down to US from anti
guilty, and should go into the discard
with other antiques. In the days
when there were no automobiles, it
was all right to split the county
money five ways and have five road
gangs, each gang drawing most of its
supplies from it's own locality. We
are now using auto and tractor in.
stead of wagon and mule team anC
the roads of thirty years ago are
jokes or Affections today. Before the
auto came into general use, county
commissioner could take his quota Of
convicts or money to hire free labor
go out in his district and build roads
or repair roads, that would provid,
fair passage way for horses ant
mules, wagons and buggies. Also, i
was cheaper to buy his supplies, food
fodder and material at Anthony o.
Belleview, Blitchton or any othe
place far out in the county than sent
into Ocala for it.
These times are entirely changed
We must consider the interest Of
whole county and not of any district
We must build not country roads blu
highways. The road overseer may b
faithful and industrious, but h
hasn't the technical education of tn
engineer. Instead of five squads eacl
putting down a few yards of roat
each day, and each causing an entire
ly disproportionate expense at it
camp headquarters, we need one train
ed engineer in control of a homogen
eous force, working from one base O
supplies, concentrating all its work OF
one place at time, finishing that an,
going on to the next place. Fifteel
men at one point will do two or thre
times as much work as five SQUAD
of three men each at five differen
points. Five overseers and five squad
of men can do little more than patch
One engineer and one overseer and
good-sized road gang can build. w,
are having plentiful illustration O.
this now. We have about two hundred
miles of highways in this county. Fo1
the last dozen years we have made n,
progress with them. We have hat
them repaired in places, and while on,
road was being mended another wen
to pieces. The division of road force,
has been carried to such a ridicuIou:
extreme that sometimes an entir,
camp force has had only one or TIVE
men working on a road Two or thre.
men can cook and keep camp in order
for forty or fifty.
The commissioners should employ
a competent road engineer and com
bine the entire road force under him
He should have one overseer anc