NORTH: SHORE BREEZE. 
_ .REFUSE TO PURCHASE PLANT 
Continued from Page 3 
It is likely that this will settle the 
matter as far as the purchase of the plant 
and franchise by the town is_ concerned. 
The option expired early in September 
anyway, and this second opportunity to 
vote on the question was given, because 
the vote before lacked only three of 
being in favor. 
The meeting was called to order at 
7.38 by Acting Town Clerk L. W. 
Floyd, who read the warrant. ‘The hall 
was more than half-filled, and by the 
time the warrant was read there were 
over 300 persons in the hall, though they 
were not all voters. 
Art. 1. On motion of F. J. Merrill, 
R. C. Allen was elected moderator. 
The matter of the Pine street lay-out was 
first taken up on motion of F.  K. 
Hooper. E. S. Knight, chairman of 
the board, presented a report in which it 
was shown that by the new lay-out 37 
sq. ft. is taken from M. J. Callahan and 
an award of $1 is made; 3000 ft. is 
taken from estate of Mrs. Nancy Hobbs, 
award $1500; 945 ft. from estate of 
Harriet C. Kitfield and others, award 
$150; all of the above on the easterly 
end of the street, near Central street, 
and on the westerly end, near Pleasant 
street 63 ft. is taken from Frank P. 
Tenney, award $10, and 210 ft. from 
estate of Abigail Dodge, $25. ‘The 
owners are given 60 days in which to 
remove buildings, trees and fences. 
W. C. Rust moved the acceptance of 
the lay-out and that the awards be al- 
lowed. Voted unanimously. Mr. Rust 
said that it would be a good plan to build 
right away and not wait until next spring 
when everybody is busy. k. S. Knight 
said that it was estimated the cost of 
construction would be $1800, and the 
total land damage was $1666. $3500 
was appropriated to cover everything. 
The moderator appointed W. W. 
Hoare, P: A. Wheaton and R.. J: 
Baker, tellers. 
Art. 2. Purchase of electric light 
plant. W. C. Rust took the floor. 
Mr. Rust said that it was well known 
that he had been a little grain notorious 
when anything in the line of improve- 
ments have come up and had always 
taken a prominent part in laying out the 
parks, the playgrounds, water works, 
new streets, etc., and he had _ been 
accused of spending a great deal of 
money foolishly. There are always 
some who say that. “The greatest job 
he had ever had anything to do with 
was the saving of the beach band for the 
town, and this he did though it cost the 
town $100,000. All of these things, he 
said, were for the good of the town, for 
the more of these attractions the town 
has, the better off it is. 
- William Swanson arose to a point of 
‘not a paying proposition. 
order, his *point being this talk had 
nothing to ‘do! with the subject. Mr. 
Rust stated, that he was relating his con- 
nection with these matters to illustrate 
his interest in the question at hand. The 
moderator said he could continue with 
reasonable limit: — 
Mr. Rust then said that the town of 
Manchester is having people come_ here 
from all parts of the country,---wealthy 
people, and the town ought to make all 
the improvements it could to attract these 
people. The time is coming, he 
thought, when electricity can be pur- 
chased cheaper than itcan now. It has 
been said that these parties who own the 
plant want to unload it onto the town, 
but I’m going to show that these people 
don’t want to get rid of it because it is 
‘They have 
two offers for it now. 
Mr. Rust pointed out that the receipts 
of the company for year ending July 1, 
were $18,821.11 and the expenditures 
were $17,244.94, leaving a balance to 
the good of $1576. That was with a 
capitalization of $200,000. They pro- 
pose selling it for $135,000. Mr. Rust 
produced further figures which showed 
that there are 894 tax payers inthe town, 
who pay atotal of $120,182. Out of 
that number only 60 of the “‘ natives ’’ 
pay $50 or over, amounting in all to 
$5600, not much more than one-half of 
what Mr. Coolidge pays, and of that 60, 
20 pay $100 or over. ‘There are 281 
in town who pay $50 or over, and 221 
of that number come here to spend their 
summers. “They pay over $190,000. 
Now the people in Manchester | talk 
about paying taxes, and how the pur- 
chase of this plant will affect them. The 
increase to the man who pays $50 
would be so. insignificant that he 
wouldn’t know it, even if the rate did 
rise. 
These ““‘summer people pay the 
town $138,000 for the pnvilege of spend- 
theirsummers here. When they come 
here and pay the whole of the taxes, 
you might say, why should we say they 
shouldn’t buy this plant if they are will- 
ing to pay for it. 
E. P. Stanley moved that the privilege 
of the floor be extended to tax payers of 
Manchester present tonight, who are not 
voters. Voted. 
Albert Cunningham asked the reason 
for calling this second meeting. 
‘The moderator stated that a petition 
from the citizens called for the meeting 
for this specific purpose. 
F. J. Merrill said that Mr. 
one of the directors of the Manchester 
Electric Co., was present, and would, 
no doubt, like to speak on the question. 
Mr. Dexter said he would like to take 
this opportunity of correcting | several 
erroneous ideas people Seerned to have. 
First of all, he said, the town was under 
no. obligation.whatever to buy this -plant. 
>> 
Dexter, 
Some have said that it would be a matter 
of bad faith if the town did not buy the 
plant, but he wanted it distinctly under- 
stood that the stockholders went into this 
matter with no _ false apprehensions. 
They knew that the town did not have 
to buy the plant unless it wanted to. 
Second, he said, this question has 
nothing to do with streetcars. The leg- 
islature forbids towns to manufacture 
electricity and sell to street railway lines, 
and so the motion had to be worded that 
way. 
Third, this is not a proposition to 
manufacture electricity, but whether to 
purchase the Manchester Electric Co., 
which is merely a distributing plant. 
Fourth, this meeting is not called at 
the instance of the summer residents. 
““When we undertook to build this plant 
we did so because electric lights were 
needed in the town. ‘The town had 
placed itself in a position where it could 
not have lights for some years, and we | 
tried to bridge over that span. We are 
now stuck withthe plant. If the town 
does not want it, somebody else will. I 
have had five people to see me about the 
plant. ‘The question for the town is 
whether the plant is worth the price. 
The original cost was very nearly $200,- 
000. An underground system in a town 
like this is a great extravagance, but we 
tried to put ina good plant. 
“Your committee thought $200,000 
more than the estimated cost, so we 
knocked off $50,000, and fe their 
shrewdness they got us to knock off $15,- 
000 more for cash. Ifthe town wants 
an electric light plant they get it cheap 
for $135,000.”’ 
Mr. Dexter then read part of a con- 
fidential report of an engineer he sent 
here to look over the plant. ‘“‘ This is 
not a cooked up report to sell a bad egg 
to a succor,”’ he said. ‘‘As for taxes, 
nobody wants to pay higher taxes. So 
far Manchester has run _ its affairs very 
well. Noreason why it couldn’t run 
this. There are 27 stockholders in this 
company out of 181 summer residents. 
Do you suppose 147 who do not own 
stock are going to let 27 others place a 
gold brick onto the town? Not like 
summer residents.’’ 
W. C. Rust said that nobody wanted 
a foreign corporation to come fh here 
and get control of this franchise. 
C. C. Dodge inquired how long these 
underground cables last, and what was 
the price, per foot or per mile. 
Supt. Cushing of the company said 
that the life of a cable varied accorbing 
to voltage; no reason why our cadles 
will not last over 20 years; cost varies as 
to size, from 20 to 75 cts a foot: 
Wm. Swanson inquired what was the 
vote of the last meeting. “The moder- 
ator replied that 167 votes were cast; 112, 
necessary for choice; 109 yes, 58 no. 
