The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer

The Market Street Improvement.

It has just dawned upon the Councilmanic intellect that the improvement of Market street in the way of widening the pavements was, to say the least of it, a little premature in view of the scarcity of ducats in the city treasury at the present writing, and of the still greater scarcity in the very near future. Our enterprising Street Commissioner has succeeded in so managing his department as to get away with over four thousand dollars of the street appropriation during the month of May, and when his June bills are paid there will be left of the appropriation, available for street work, a little rising above $1,000, to carry on the department for the next ten months.

This is why we say that the commencement of any improvement of Market street was premature. The fact is that the widening of the sidewalk has rendered the street itself a sort of mild abortion. The throwing of the gutter some two feet towards the centre of the street has narrowed its carrying capacity so as to successfully flood the cellars with the water of a heavy rain. To remedy this it was proposed in Council on Wednesday evening to alter and amend the gutter by taking up a narrow strip of cobble stones and deepening the gutter at a cost of one hundred dollars. This measure passed the Second Branch, but the members of the First Branch were not long in discovering that the remedy was worse than the evil itself, from the fact that it would materially increase the declivity of the street from the crown towards the gutter, still further damaging it as a wagon thoroughfare. The truth is, that knowing the depleted condition of the treasury and the limited appropriation for the street department, the Market street pavement should not have been touched the present season, and the work was but partially completed when the absolute folly of it was apparent, unless at the same time the street should be lowered and repaved in conformity with the plan pursued in the Main street hill improvement. It was too late to go back on the work and the street was being materially damaged for travel and the proposed remedy for drainage purposes was only making matters worse. Messrs. Gilleapy & Slater laid before the First Branch of Council a proposition to grade and repave the street from 12th street to Egerter's corner in conformity with the Main street improvement, for six hundred dollars.

Advantageous as the proposition seemed in the opinion of councilmen, they were stared full in the face by the fact that the city had no funds, and to accept the proposition was simply to leave the street department without a nickel for the balance of the year, because it was self-evident that contingencies involving more work than is embraced in the contract would eat up the little balance of the appropriation. In this dilemma, Mr. Egerter who, by the way, is one of the clearest headed and most practical members in Council, came to the rescue with the pledge that if the Council would guarantee that the work should be done after the plan of the Main street improvement he himself would raise from the property owners along the line of the proposed improvement five hundred dollars, which added to the one hundred proposed to be paid for altering the gutters would enable the city to accept the proposition of Messrs. Gilleapy & Slater.

Right here we assume two propositions. The first is, that right now the Council should put its foot down upon any further ordering of improvements to be made this year. To do so is in direct violation of the recent enactment of the Legislature, prayed for and obtained by action of Council itself, unless such order is concurred in by three-fourths of the Council. The resolution so boldly taken to confine expenditures within the limits of receipts should be rigidly adhered to, even at the sacrifice of any and all improvements. The second proposition is that if property owners on certain streets desire them to be improved they will be the gainers both in the merit of the work and the cost of it by adopting Mr. Egerter's plan; that is, get the assent of Council to have the improvements made, then get a reliable contractor to do the work by contract and pay for it themselves. In our opinion the advantages will far outweigh any objections that suggest themselves to our mind at present. Under such a plan the people would not be obliged to employ the firm who have the city contract for paving in case said firm does not give satisfaction in the work and the city under such conditions ought to relieve the work from the superintendence of an incompetent Street Commissioner and allow it to be done under the superintendence either of the City Engineer or some other competent man whom the property holders, at whose expense the work was being done, might select. We believe that such an experiment as Mr. Egerter proposes will demonstrate that real improvements can thus be made at less expense to the taxpayer in the end, and we further believe that it is the only way in which any extended and permanent improvement of our streets can be obtained for a long time to come. It is at least worth the serious consideration of the people.