Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 62, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 November 1918 — BRIDGE BUILDING SCANDAL IN UNION TOWNSHIP [ARTICLE]

BRIDGE BUILDING SCANDAL IN UNION TOWNSHIP

Trustee Paid $321.80 for a SIOO Job, Say Taxpayers.—State Board of Accounts Investigating. , Taxpayers of Union township, regardless of party affiliations, are greatly wrought up over alleged doings of the Republican trustee of that township, George W. Hammerton, who is a candidate for re-election, and prominent Republicans, It is said, have appealed to the State Board of Accounts to Investigate some of the more glaring Irregularities, which includes the building of concrete headers on a certain bridge near Virgie. A civil engineer and two accountants from Indianapolis came here yesterday to investigate the matter, sent here by State Board of Accounts. It Is alleged that the job of putting in the headers and filling in with dirt between, was given to Ancil Potts and a man by the name of Reed, without any competitive bidding; that the township furnished the two corrugated iron culverts which are laid side by side, with the concrete headers at either end; that the trustee paid Potts and Reed $191.60 for labor; $90.20 for lumber and gravel, and S4O for cement, making a total of $320.80 for a job which many say they would be glad to do at from $75 to SIOO. Taxpayers who have investigated the matter say that the men who did the work got the shiplap used for making the forms at Demotte, for sl3. and that they paid but sl3 for the gravel, making only $26 for which they charged and were paid by the township, $90.20. And to add insult to injury, it is alleged that the lumber used in making the forms and which the township paid for, was taken home by one of the men doing the work and used in siding up a chicken house. There are some other matters connected with this alleged bridge deal which will come out in the investigation, the taxpayers say, which may make it very interesting for all connected therewith.