History of Orange County, Ca. by Samuel Armor

Author:Samuel Armor [Armor, Samuel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Geschichte
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Published: 2017-06-22T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XV - ORANGE COUNTY'S GOOD ROADS

Just prior to the meeting of the legislature of 1907, some representative automobile men came together at Los Angeles and drafted a road law which was introduced in the legislature by Senator Savage of San Pedro. This "Savage Act" authorized any county in the state to vote bonds for the improvement of its main highways connecting the cities and towns, exclusive of the streets in the incorporated cities, such improvement being confined to a width of sixteen feet along the middle of said highways, which width was later increased to at least twenty feet, as may be seen in the following tables.

Shortly after the passage of this act an agitation was commenced to make it applicable to Orange County; but, some opposition being encountered, the matter was dropped for a time. Two years later the subject was taken up by the Associated Chambers of Commerce. Petitions were circulated for signatures and presented to the board of supervisors, asking that the question of issuing bonds of the county for highway purposes be submitted to the electors. The supervisors granted the petitions on March 2, 1910, and appointed C. C. Chapman, W. H. Burnham and M. M. Crookshank as a highway commission to prepare the preliminary work and have charge of the improvement of the highways. C. C. Chapman served but little more than a month, resigning on account of too many other interests that needed his time and attention, and Richard Egan was appointed to take his place. The commission employed R. T. Harris as secretary, Daniel S. Halladay as engineer and S. H. Finley as assistant engineer. Several months were spent in surveying and mapping the roads and in obtaining data from all available sources; but, when the commission was about ready to report, the approval by the people of the state's issuing $18,000,000 road bonds, caused some doubt and hesitation.

However, after the state engineers had located the state highway through Orange County and the county highway commission had amended its report two or three times, said report was finally filed with the board of supervisors September 19, 1912, recommending a bond issue of $1,270,000. The supervisors promptly approved the report and called the election for November 4, the day before the regular election. The result was: Bonds, yes 5,290 and Bonds, no 2,236. The opposition was to bonding and not to the improvement of the roads. It was argued that, if a sum equal to the interest on bonds were put into the improvement of a piece of road each year, the roads would all be improved in a few years and the county would have no debt, or double burden, to carry meanwhile. But over two-thirds of the voters declared in favor of the bonds in order to get the immediate benefit of the improvement; so the taxpayers have no just cause for complaint of the burden which they voluntarily assumed.

In addition to the resignation of C. C. Chapman, which has already

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