The Courthouse Contract Benton County Couldn't Swallow
Commissioners Clements and McNeill let a courthouse contract and issued a warrant without advertising for bids. A judge said they were within the law; the Courier-Reporter said the taxpayers would remember.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Last Friday must have been an off day for Commissioners Clements and McNeill. Had they been truly up to form they would never have stopped until they had let the contract for a court house and issued a warrant to the contractor as first payment. Of course the regular method of procedure was to advertise for bids, but when our commissioners are feeling really fit a mere perfunctory matter never bothers them. It is barely possible that the two commissioners are becoming overtrained.
While Commissioners Clements and McNeill may find some scant satisfaction in the decision of Judge Grady that their acts were within the law—or rather beyond the law—the court's decision will not win them back into the good graces of the people of the county. The court may sustain the acts of the two commissioners, but it can never mollify the public's opinion of those acts. While in the eyes of the court the commissioners on December 4 were acting within their legal rights, in the eyes of the taxpayer those acts were culpable, arbitrary, high-handed, dishonorable and conceived in bad faith.
After all, what profiteth it a man if he gain a court decision and lose the respect and confidence of his people? Henceforth, so long as he may choose to live in Benton County, James B. Clements will be a man without a country. He will have lost his old friends without having made new ones.
Considerable talk is being indulged in about recalling the county auditor. 'A worse thing could happen,' says the Republican Bulletin. Right you are. A worse thing could happen—chief among them the continuation of the Clements-McNeill regime after January 8. The county auditor might be recalled all right, but somebody would have a hard time doing it with the people of the county in their present state of mind. Considerable talk is also being indulged in about calling a grand jury. A worse thing could hardly happen—for some people in Benton County.
“While in the eyes of the court the commissioners on December 4 were acting within their legal rights, in the eyes of the taxpayer those acts were culpable, arbitrary, high-handed, dishonorable and conceived in bad faith.”
A century later, the fight over whether public contracts are competitively bid and who answers to taxpayers still defines local government coverage. The editor's fury is a reminder that procurement rules, court rulings and recall threats are old tools in Benton County's civic arsenal.
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