Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 October 1907 — 729 NAMES ON REMONSTRANCE [ARTICLE]

729 NAMES ON REMONSTRANCE

Kankakee Petition Assailed by Those Who Oppose the Proposition. The Kankakee river drainage petition which was filed in this county a short time ago has stirred op a big lot of opposition that is quite certain to test the 1907 drainage act in the supreme court and to at, least delay for some time the drainage scheme as proposed by the petition. The law requires that two thirds of the property owners effected by the scheme and named in the petition for the improvement shall be required on a remonstrance to defeat the petition. While some 1,600 or 1,600 people are named in the petition and only 729 names are on the remonstrance, the attorneys for the remonstrators say that they can show that there are many names on the petition of people no longer land owners and of men now dead and that the remonstrance is sufficient with some to spare. The opposition also attacks the jurisdiction of the court, claiming that by the government survey the greater number of miles of the ditch are in Porter county and that the case should come up in that county. The opposition will also endeavor to show that the act of 1907 which repealed all former ditch acts makes it impossible to appoint ditch commissioners until Jan. 1, 1908. '. ' The petitioners are represented by Attorney A. Halleck, vFho has given this ditch matter much study since the time he helped defeat the Darrow bill in the last state legislature and he contends that the ditch as proposed is safe from the attacks of its opponents.