The Coolidge Examiner

COOLIDGE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE BACKS MOVE FOR TOWN INCORPORATION

As is usual with a new town undergoing at present the experience of settling the question as to whether it is ready for incorporation. The matter was quietly discussed during last summer and was finally brought to a head at the meeting held by the chamber of commerce Tuesday evening when a committee that had been appointed to look into the matter reported that as a result of the their work it was their opinion that Coolidge was large enough to take on a town incorporation. This committee had also prepared the boundaries of the area to be incorporated, which are shown in petitions now being circulated among the citizens.

The metes and bounds of the area approved by the chamber of commerce include all of the subdivided portions of the original Coolidge townsite, North Coolidge, West Coolidge, East Coolidge, Baughn townsite, Stoeger tract, Seagoe's first and second additions and Allen tract and the north portion of the Seagoe's acreage, the Hogue acreage between West Coolidge and the county highway, the 20 acres adjoining the Allen tract on the west and the acreage between the original Coolidge townsite and the Stoeger addition. The unsubdivided acreage was confined to the land needed to eliminate too irregular a line for the proposed city limits.

Petitions are being circulated to be presented to the board of supervisors. The petition for incorporating must show the signatures of two-thirds of the taxable inhabitants of the land within the area to be incorporated. Paul J. Feehan, local attorney who has volunteered his services in carrying out the legal requirements, states that under the law taxable inhabitants include all residents paying any taxes, either real, personal or road.

Providing the petition as presented is approved by the board of supervisors they will appoint the first city council of Coolidge of five members, and these members select the mayor from among themselves. This council holds office until May following the incorporation, when the first city election is held.

The law for incorporating under common council government is as follows:

367-Proceedings for incorporation; petition to board of supervisors; order of board. Whenever two-thirds of the taxable inhabitants of any city or town in the state, containing a population of five hundred or more inhabitants, shall present their petition to the board of supervisors of the county in which such city or town is situated, setting forth the metes and bounds of such city or town, and the name whereby such inhabitants desire to be incorporated, and praying for the incorporation of such city or town, and if the supervisors shall be satisfied that two-thirds of the taxable inhabitants of such city, or town; have signed such a petition, such county supervisors may, by an order to be entered on record, declare such city or town incorporated. Such order shall designate the name, and the metes and bounds thereof; and from henceforth the inhabitants within such metes and bounds, shall be a body politic and corporate. by the name designated.