Claims Action Premature

CLAIMS ACTION IS PREMATURE

Reasons Why Liberty Street Paving Is Attacked

STIVERS VS. SAWYER

The Two Attorneys Will Lock Horns On This Paving

Stivers Sets Up His Reasons

The petition for an injunction against the paying of Liberty street states the grounds on which the pavIng is sought to be restrained. They may be summarized as follows:

1. That the petition for the paving was not signed by the majority of the property owners. The petition was signed by 48 persons and the bill claims there are 106 property owners, giving their names, which would make the petition six short of a majority.

2. That the petition is the same as presented to the council July 7, 1902, and laid on the table as not signed by a majority of the property holders. The bill charges that someone secured this same petition from City Clerk Harkins and secured a few more names to it and presented it to the council purporting it to be a new petition. That some who signed the original petition did not know their names were on this new petition.

3. The bill claims that some of the signers do not now own property on the street, that one was not an owner of property when his signature was affixed, that one signed as guardian without authority, that one as agent without authority being shown. It charges that several signers had notified the council that they wanted their names taken off and that their requests were disregarded.

4. That only nine members of the council voted for adoption of the specifications, etc., of the board of public works, when the claim is set up that every step in paving must have ten votes.

5. Other irregularities are charged, as tor instance, it is claimed that the petition was presented to the council February 16, and referred to a committee; that at the same meeting without a report of the committee and without any procedure to take the petition from the hands of the committee, the council passed a resolution to pave Liberty street. It is claimed that the petition is properly yet in the hands of the committee and that this action of the council was taken without the petition, which is properly still in the hands of the committee.

Attorneys Stivers and Sawyer will be pitted against each other in this suit and the outcome will be watched with interest.