214 FIRST COUNTY PARK SYSTEM 
PARK BOARD'S CHARTER. 
After Counsel Munn had given a somewhat confusing 
reply to the widening and assessment question, the transfer 
ordinance was taken up. The commission then peremptor- 
ily declined to accept the ordinance as it stood, particularly 
the section binding its successors never to apply “to any 
court or other power” for the right to levy assessments for 
the improvement of the avenues. This, notwithstanding 
the first section of the charter, in creating “such Board of 
Park Commissioners and their successors a body politic,” 
then, as now, gives the commissioners ample authority to 
act for their successors, as, indeed, in most practical affairs, 
they had theretofore always done, and, from the necessities 
of the case, must continue to do, so long as the commission, 
under its present charter, exists. This right and prerogative 
has been, from the first transaction, unequivocally estab- 
lished, and is constantly exercised in the acquirement of 
land for parks and parkways; in the unquestioned right to 
make rules and regulations governing the parks, and in 
many other ways; and why the line should have been thus 
drawn on the advice of the board’s counsel, on this particu- 
lar occasion, I must leave to the reader to determine; for, 
-unless it was for the purpose of continuing to confuse and 
befog the transfer question, I have never been able to ac- 
count for it. The fair purport and clear logic of the state- 
ment of the commission’s intention was, however, favorably 
received. To that extent it had an excellent effect. 
Efforts to have the objectionable feature of the ordinance 
amended were then made. The pressure of public opinion 
to have some action taken hy the City Council was con- 
tinued, and accelerated by the passage of resolutions by a 
number of representative and public-spirited organizations. 
Among others, the Woman’s Club, early in October, 1898, 
adopted a resolution, as follows: 
. “Resolved, That we women of the Oranges, represented 
by the Woman’s Club, of Orange, earnestly favor the early 
transfer of Park and Central avenues to the Park Commise 
