The globe-independent. (Hagerstown, Md.) 1943-19??, 1950-09-14
News OF
CityHan

At the regular monthly meeting
of the Mayor of the Mayor and
of the Mayor and Council, held at
the City Hall on Thursday night,
the following matters were discussed:
The proposal made sometime ago
that the city purchase property on
the east side of North Jonathan
Street, between Franklin and Church
Streets, for the dual purpose of en-
larging the present market house
parking lot and the ultimate widen
ing of Jonathan Street, was again
brought up when Attorney d. K.
Mclaughlin, representing one of the
property owners, appeared before
the Council to find out what was
being done in the matter since his
client was considering remodeling
and improving his property.
It was brought out during the dis
cussion that the city had gone no
farther than asking committee of
real estate men to appraise the prop
erty in question, and Mr. McLaugh-
lin was told by the Mayor and City
Attorney Urner that there was moth
ing to stop his client from going
ahead with whatever improvements
he had in mind, and that should the
city finally decide to take over the
property by either purchase or con-
demnation proceedings, the improve
ments made would, of course, enter
into the price paid.
A representative of the real es-
tate company that is developing
Carroll Heights appeared before the
Council to request that the city en-
gineer be given permission to adj
vertise for bids for putting in sewer
connections to the residential sub
division, rather than wait until such
time as the city could do the work
itself. The representative pointed
out that five or six of the new homes
will be ready for Occupancy within
about ten days, but that they had
been advised by City Engineer Stein
bach that the city would be unable
to start work on the sewers for at
least a month
During the discussion that ensued,
Councilman Broom opposed the adj
vertising of bids for the work and
even went so far as to state that the
people who had purchased the homes
could go ahead and dig cesspools
until such time as the city could get
around to putting the sewer in.
Councilman Broom finally agreed
to the advertising of bids, but his
agreement was based on the under
standing that the real purpose of the
bids was not to give the work to an
outside contractor, but simply to
find out whether a contractor could
do the work cheaper than the city
could. (For editorial comments on
this matter see around Town With
The Editor" elsewhere on this page. J
Thurman c. Lindsey, local real
estate developer, then presented to
the Mayor and Council plan for
commercial center in the south
end of the city, adjacent to the Mu-
nicipal Stadium, on property which
has been purchased by Norman S.
Farley and Son, wel1-known local
contractors.
Mr. Lindsey explained to the
Council the need of such a center,
where wholesale distributors who
now operate from other cities and
simply have salesman in Hagers-
town would be able to set up their
warehouses right here and make
HagerStown their central distribut-
ing point for quite a wide area. In
presenting his plan, Mr.. Lindsey Of
fered the city, free of all costs, the
rightaway for a street through the
development and proposed that the
street should be named Commercial
Avenue. Mayor Mills appointed a
committee, consisting of Councilmen
Luther Broom and Frank Elliott and
City Engineer Charles Steinbach, to
meet with Mr.. Lindsey on Friday
evening and look the proposition
over and report back to the Council
with their recommendations.
Outside of routine matters the
final business brought before the
Council was the question of straight
ening out some of the cities street
Names, which was brought up by
Mr.. Steinbach who pointed out that
some of the streets in the city change
their names at intersections, such
as West Church Street, which be-
comes East Avenue when it crosses
North Potomac Street.