The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1960-08-26

With a gusher or flood of money
flowing from the gasoline pumps il
tax pennies amounting to a total OF
| ST., 587,071 which must be spent be.
fore July 1, 1861 the Highway De-
partment has struck snags in the
form of engineer programming and
| right-of-way acquisition shortcom-
ings. At the August meeting the COM
mission was able to let only 1884, ;
500 in contracts. July was also a
slim month for contractors.
The Interstate program in 1861
will spend 41,610,659 of which 49,
640,933 will be state matching funds.
The primary system will expend
16,643,473 of which the state puts
up $7,281,51
Secondary totals $11, 218,258 with
the state contribution of $4,907,988.
Urban totals $2,114,681 with the
states share at $925,173.
Of the total program the federal
government furnishes $54,831,458
while the states share is 16,755,613.
The state anticipates $20,396,685
SO that there will be a $3,641,O72
carryover from this fiscal year.
Thus for the second month of this
12-month period bid lettings of the
highway construction program in
Montana have fallen below average
by more than rs per cent.
The feast and famine system of
letting contracts, with this construc-
tion season rapidly drawing to close,
has fallen under the close observation
of the new Montana division Bureau
of Public Roads superintendent, Ed
ward H. Cowan.
(Cowan has been with the BPR
since 1926 arriving in Helena from
Salem, Oregon, where ne was dis
5rict engineer for the past five years.
He was formerly a BPR design engi-
1eer in Alaska from 1949 to 1854.
Cowan is trying to figure out what |
n the brown-eyed world the Mon
ANA Highway Commission is doing. |
4 major portion of the commission |
lime is spent by the brown eyes of |
Chairman Harry Burns darting black |
ooks in my direction. The preposter-
BUSINESS of this situation can only be
cured by the coming election.
Preposterous proceedings promul-
rated this month by Burns & Co. in
Jude:
(1) Endorsing the KalispeH Cham
,er of Commerce action of setting
leighbor against neighbor to secure
over right-of-way costs. Community
treasures are to be used to force
'rivate owners to sell out cheap in
rider to hurry UP the construction
f recreational roads.
(2) Twenty people from Emigrant:
1mmett Stockburger, Otto Marks
nan, Hazel K. Payne, Montana
larnes, Olive Karnes, jeanne Todd,
Earnest Stockburger, Gilbert Rags
ale, Albert Karnes, Joe Petrich,
larry Payne, Jr., Bob Stewart, w.
!. Karnes, Art Pfohl, J. A. Binley,
ohm A. Ragsdale, Dave Rigler, War
en- DePuy, Larry Todd and Claude
Iookham, were told to keep rolling
n the walnuts" for another 16 S
lonths at least. /
The road south of Emigrant was
1rfaced with very coarse gravel /
ithout any binding materials over
boulder base three years ago. The q
on their cars has been q
eaten off, gas tanks punctured and
res chewed up. To pave these eleven h
lies south would be too expensive t
this time the commission contends. f
he ten miles north must be con- a
ructed up through DePuy's "fish d
,nds'' and then a contract would S
: let to black top the entire dis h
nee. Almost five years will have \
zen spent trying to save ON COM f
ission nickels while the public's]
and personal equipment 0
to suffer the abuse of !,
beautiful brown eyes,. b
(3) The dilly-dallying erection of b
e overpass in Billings has caused e
e Cahoon Construction Co. to ask :
r $121, 068.8O ON top of the con-
act price for loss of time for men