Perth Amboy evening news., 1923-03-16
sTACT|CS THOSE
Of FCUTTLEF|SH
Declares City Engineer Nc
Michael of South Amboy in
Discussing Fight

SOUTH AMBOY, March 16.-City
Engineer A. II. McMichael, in a
statement to the press today, refers
to the "cuttle fish, methods en-
ployed by certain local politicians
and office holders and explains his
views on the controversy, which has
followed the failure OF the mayor to
connrm the appointment of several
municipal officials.
The statement follows:
There has been such a. general
comment about the office CT city
engineer and the salary supposed to
be attached to it that I cannot in
Justice to my colleagues in office
further remain silent in spite of the
purely political nature of the con-
&roversy. 1t might be of interest
to the general public to know that
there Is not one cent of salary paid
the ot1ce. OF course everyone in
publ; office knows this fact; hence
anything to the contrary must be
purely subterfuge.
For the moment leaving aside
fees paid for water works the office
for the past nine years has paid
an average of $1,000 per year. This
includes all expenses such as help,
rent, light, expensive instruments
and supplies and general Office ex-
penseS, also many small items such
~ purchase of materials that went
for city use. BY far the greater part
Of these fees were not charged to
general taxation at all, but to i'm
provements. For instance, a GER
tain street had sidewalks laid. The
charges for engineering services
were made part of the cost of lay
Ing that sidewalk and consequently
assessed against those particular
properties; hence they could not be
charged against the general pubic
at all. Briefly the facts are as fol-
lows: The Office of citv engineer
receives and has received for the
last !ine years the magnificent fc-
muneration of about 5000 per year
and !, ss than hale of that was
charged against tho genel al tax
payer or about $400 per year.
Instead of being 'exhorbitant' as
q councilman is credited with saying,
the amount is ridicously low when
1t Is known that the city is getting
the services of an entire engineering
depa tmo1t without one cent of
other expense and the taxpayer not
even paying much of that. The above
facts were given to his honor the
mayor and the city council just be-
fore Christmas last year. These
facts could very we'll have been veri-
fled from the c.ty books but some
chose to ignore them for reasons
best known to themselves.
II hereby issue the following chal-
lenge to his honor the mayor and
Councilman DisbroW-That he ap-
point a man, and L appoint a man,
and those two appoint a third man
to act with them. These three men
)p go over all bills presented and
faid by the city to the city engineer
during the period mentioned in the
mayors message and decide what
would be a fair charge for services
rendered. If in their opinion I have
overcharged for the gross amount
during that time I am willing to do
nate to the South Amboy Hospital
the entire amount overcharged pro-
Vided the mayor or Councilman Dis
brow will promise to donate to the
hospital the gross amount under
charged in the opinion of the above
three men. The only stipulation be-
ing that the above three men be
engineers or have had experience in
hiring engineering services.
president Roosevelt once called a
man q cutie fish. The cutie fish,
be it remembered, is fish that dis
charges into the water around it a
quantity of black fluid that so dis
colors the water that an enemy can
not find it and escapes. There are
plenty of cutie fish tactics in the
present actions Of our political op-
ponents. They do not hesitate to
blacken reputation or impair the
efficiency of our city government 20
gain a political end. One of the
councilmen in an unguarded moment
said that they intended holding up
the political appointments until next
year when they would have control
of the city government; hence a poor
excuse for delay is better than no ex-
cuse at all. Ridiculous charges of
exhorbitant salaries follow the still
more absurd statement about the
failure to define the duties OF the
various offices when they cannot
help but know that the ordinance of
1910 and 1914 cover the subject fully
and completely" J
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