214 FIEST COUXTY PAEK SYSTEM 



PARK board's charter. 



After Counsel Munn liad given a somewhat confusing 

 reply to tlie 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 parkway's : in the unquestioned right to 

 make rules and regnlations 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 eifect. 



Efforts to have the objectionable feature of the ordinance 

 amended were then made. The pressure of j)ublic opinion 

 to have some action taken by 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, e^rly in October, 1898, 

 adopted a resolution, as follows : 



"Eesolved, That we women of the Oranges, represented 

 by the Woman's Club, of Orange, earnestly favor the early 

 transfer of Park and Central a\^u^ to the Park Commit- 



