Milford chronicle., 1953-07-24
HAS CITY COUNCIL PULLED
ANOTHER BONER?


another bOner in the handling of our sew
age?" On Thursday we were deluged with
calls from irate property owners in the Sec
Ond Ward who are making strenuous vocal
complaints about the new situation which
has developed. Now that the long-drawn-out
Seabury avenue sewage and street paving,
project has been completed, the city author
tiles have apparently created another prob
lem for property owners in the ward 1t
seems that the city authorities have dumped
the surface water drainage into the sanitary
sewers constructed to take care Of Lake View
avenue and Clarke avenue outlets. The re-
suit, If complaints are proven correct, is that
the sanitary sewers on Lake View avenue
are not large enough to take care of the
greatly increased flow caused by the dump
ing of the surface water into them.
This is a problem that should have been
anticipated and provisions should have been
made to take care of the increased load when
the newly constructed sewers were laid. 1t
would seem that someone in a position to
know has pulled a bOner We have no desire
to lay the blame on any one individual or
group of individuals, but it does seem to us
that competent engineering foresight would
have fOrestalled the condition that now has
the property owners riled.
AS a background, it might be interesting
to note that the Lake View avenue sewer was
originally built by the property owners at
their own expense. This was in 1912. Years
later the city took over this line, without re-
paying those who had paid their money for
the original construction work, and made a
surface water sewer out OF it. A new sewer
was constructed on the opposite side of the
street and all properties on Lake View avenue
were tapped into the new sewer. The city at
that time was not too careful in making the
cut-ins into the new sewer and many COM
plants have been made in the past few years
about the poor workmanship of the Job. Now
comes this trouble. In the meantime the State
of Delaware has constructed an eXcellentN
rOadbed on Lake View avenue and the prop
erty owners do not want this damaged by the
city by breaking into the street. 1t seems that
every time the city makes an excavation that
the fill is not properly made-and the patch
ed up condition of many places throughout
! the city bears evidence of this lack of proper
engineering knowledge on the part of some
one, or group of someone's, who either do not
know how or just plain don't care
This knowledge on the part of the citizens
of Milford of the apparent lack of ability of
city employees, was very deciding factor
in the defeat of the recent proposed bond
issue for sewer extension work here Isn't
1t about time that our city fathers awaken to
the fact that Milford residents want work
on our municipal facilities done right, that
+; the conditions now confronting us must be
corrected, and that better and more cOmpe-
tent supervision of municipal affairs must
be had? We think so.
5000
EISENHOWER TAKES THE MIDDLE
ROAD
Some historians nave divided the Presi-
dents of the United States into two rather
arbitrarily-defned groups. The first con-
SiSts of the sO-called "Weak" Presidents: the
9th of Abo So
The difference is not one of ability or char
acter or resolution on the part of the Presi-
dents concerned. 1t is, instead, a difference
in attitudeNtoWard the philosophy of govern
ment. The first group consists of Chief Exec
utiVes who believed that the Presidential
duty is to suggest courses Of policy and leg
lslatlon, and then to abide by whatever Con-
gress decides with minimum of controversy.
In other words, they regarded the Presidency
as primarily an administrative job. The sec
Ond group worked on the principle that the
President has the right and even the obliga-
ton to dominate and direct Congress, using
every means at his command toward that end
10 take specific cases, these historians
often cite Calvin Coolidge as a near-perfect
example OF the first group, and Franklin
Roosevelt as near-perfect example of the
second group The latter reached something
OF new high in efforts to totally dominate
all branches of the government in his un-
successful Supreme Court packing plan.
1t IS no secret that some segments of the
Republican Party-made up, for the most
part OF younger elements have been gravely
disappointed in President Eisenhewers con-
duct of the Executive Congressional relation
ship. They expected that he would be an ex-
tremely Strong" President, who would move
heaven and earth to get his ideas over and
VINO would brook no delay or opposition. The
Iact that Mr.. Eisenhower had been. a soldier
Of the highest rank, whose orders were in
stantly translated into action, no doubt fed