Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1915 — DON’T FORGET THIS. [ARTICLE]

DON’T FORGET THIS.

Taxpayers Are Stung If Election Carries and Road Is Not Built. In speaking of the proposition to vote a $71,000 subsidy in Wabash township, Tippecanoe county, for Promotor O. L. Brown’s paper railroad, the Lafayette Sunday Record says that “the promotors have to pay the expense of the election whether it carries or not.” Bro. Isherwood should look up the law' a little closer in this matter. If the proposition carries, whether the road is ever built or not, the expense of holding the election is paid by the township voting; if it does not carry, then it is paid by the petitioners who ask for the election. Perhaps a score of such elections have been held in Jasper county in the past twenty years, always carrying in Rensselaer and Marion tp. at leastj and the taxpayers have been “soaked” in every instance for the costs. This expense should be paid by the township holding the election, but heretofore it has been paid out of the county revenue, and the citizens of the north and south end of the county have had to help pay for the assininity of Marion tp., or Rensselaer, rather. Under the present law we have a chance to make the promotors pay the expenses of holding such an election, but we can only do so by defeating the proposition. If it carries, we are again “soaked” so. the expenses, as usual.