Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1901 — HOW ABOUT THIS? [ARTICLE]

HOW ABOUT THIS?

A gentleman from a distance was here the first of the week to put in a bid for the construction of the Makemself sewer, which the city council has advertised to be let next Monday night. The advertisement cites that “the details of construction to be in accordance with the plans and specifications on file in the office of the city clerk” The gentleman called at the clerk’s office, stated his business and asked to see the plans and specifications. He was informed that they were incomplete but would be fixed up sometime before the contract wrs let or soon after and would then be adopted by the council. This, he was informed, the city attorney had said was perfectly legal and was the method usually pursued in such matters here.

Now any ten year old school boy ought to know that such methods are not all right and come a long way from being legal. The council has no contract to let or advertisement for bids to make until the plans and specifications have been adopted, and therefore the advertisement and the whole proceedings are illegal. Specifications must be on file and open to public inspection to allow free competition in bidding, and this thing of leaving the matter open until some favored one is given the contract and then fixing up the specifications to suit the contractor, is illegal and wholly void. The contractor above mentioned desired to know the length of sewer, depth, fall, etc., but the specifications were left blank on those points; in fact the specifications on file were in skeleton form and the figures are to be filled in, presumably after the contract is let. This contractor informed The Democrat that he had never before seen any such proceedings, and that the result would be to shut out all contractors from bidding except possibly some local favorite, who might know what figures would be inserted in the specifications where they are now left blank. He said that the whole proceeding was void, and any property owner could successful}' resist payment of his assessment for the inprovement in the courts. As the city has a paid attorney and a city engineer and also has one attorney on the council, it would seem that such matters as this could hardly occur through ignorance. As the illegal action regarding the sewer matter is now made public it is hardly likely that the contract will be let Monday night, as advetised.