ustxtxb_obs_1965_09_17_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

Bott later learned that $366.16 too much had been paid for a street sweeper and got the overpayment refunded. The new council was advised by its attorney that the sweeper had been bought illegally in that no competitive bids had been received. Several pieces of heavy equipment were shipped off for repair by the lame duck council in its last week, but this was prevented in the main when Bott called to cancel the work. The net result of all this was more than $4,500 of expense that hadn’t been budgeted for the current fiscal yearthis for a town whose financial resources usually require it to borrow money each summer to make ends meet until tax revenues start coming in during November. At present more than $4,000 has been borrowed by the new council to . pay city bills. Explains deposed Mayor Boatwright: the outstanding debts were paid off by his administration “fearing the new council would repudiate the debts.” Another problem vexing the new council is a rash of resignations from city government committees, among them several people who had accepted appointments only a day or two before they quit. But more serious is a budding boycott in paying city ad valorem taxes. Whether it will materialize won’t be known until November, when taxes become payable. Bott indicates he has enough proof to go to court if a boycott is carried through. Boatwright says he’s “heard the rumor to withhold paying taxes. There are those who are going to want to know how their taxes will be spent,” the ex-mayor says. S INCE THE NEW REGIME took office the city secretary of the last and the chief of police, city attorney, and auditor have all been replaced. The new police chief is Joseph C. Garcia, succeeding Raymond Hoskins, who in May was demoted to patrolman and immediately resigned. Garcia is described by Bott as a veteran peace officer and well-qualified. He was on the Corpus force five years. The former city secretary, Clifton Berry, was asked for his resignation in July, refused, and was fired. Replacing him is Fred Pfeifer, 31, at that time a copyreader on the Corpus Christi Caller-Times and a few weeks before that news editor of the Robstown Record. At Robstown, which also has a Latin population of some 75%, Pfeifer became known in his four months I. Tonight one bright white star In showing through some halfclasped Filigree of phantom summer’s wrap Reveals an occult, waiting world Of sight and sound above, below, All ground with snowlike sheen, All-knowing, living, other world than ours. II. And now, enchanted, never two But single lone adventurers in this, Their land of sustenance and seeking, Tell farewell unconsciously, a temporal farewell Of passions rivedone wishing that far star land, One sensing, still, its feet upon this earth it knows Like lovers’ touches in the night of love. These passions, singing deeply through the wind-sung &filament, Unseen, unheard, but known by him who stands And feels this love song of his kind, this adoration Of the single accidental star-world on the rim Of what he can and cannot be, forgetting what He lives within and for, nocturnal searcher That he is, unceasingly, he reaches out to grasp That which he cannot grasp. His sigh, made myriad by night’s cool void Of living darkness, all befits him now; The wonder’s loss, through shifting filigree, Evasive magic from a rolling cloud’s wide sweep, Has mattered less, far less, than worlds He cannot reach within his own. Those men who caught and held a star-song, Trembling, human-near, were never quite So confident, possessing, loving, As he, earth’s lone adventurer, in his defeat. LOU ANN SIMS with the local weekly as a man devoted to the Latin cause. He moved to Texas from his native Illinois expressly because of a fondness for the Latin people and culture, both in Mexico and South Texas. Pfeifer and Manuel Chavez are living at the same place, giving rise to talk of their being concerned about self-protection. A local Anglo lady stopped Pfeifer on the street one day inquiring if he’d found another place to live, meaning a place where he wouldn’t be staying with a Latin. “This is South Texas,” she reminded him with sweet concern. Action Party officials, looking back, believe the old regime was guilty of unsound government. Bott says, “We hired a new auditor who says he found a glaring lacking in the city’s accounting system. For instance, they never recognized depreciation as a cost of operation in our water and sewage department budgets. We’re told by our auditor that two percent of the capital investment in the systems should be set aside each year for replacement.” Another fault he cites: the city water supply is not state approved. Bott says he understands the problem involves building fences around municipal wells and the treatment plantsomething his administration is looking into. “We may face a tax increase or an increase in water rates to correct some of these situations,” he says. A review of the local tax base is planned to see that no inequities exist and that all potential sources are being tapped. “This will reduce the burden to all taxpayers,” Bott says, “especially the largest.”* This last phrase indicates an aspect, of Bott’s and the Action Party’s expressed hope that cooperation with the old order may be achieved. A similar note was sounded in the party platform: “to promote the existing ranching and farming interests which have been the foundation and backbone of this community.” However, the signs are not congenial. The new councilmen and their families are having to sustain considerable abuse. The “telephone ‘brigade,” several women given to intemperate phone calls at odd hours, is at work. During a recent council meeting Bott played a tape recording of what he described as telephone calls abusing him and his family. Among the quotes: “We think [Bott] is going to be rotten-egged out of town.” “That stinking mayor . . . is going to be hung before dark.” Bott rejoins: “President Truman once said ‘If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.’ I don’t intend to leave the kitchen.” Other forms of retaliation have been threatened. Bott reports people coming to his home to talk to his wife. He is worried that unpleasantness may be directed at his child in school. Similar treatment of a family reportedly forced one of the town’s two physicians to move away this summer. The doctor, a resident here some four or five years, came to Texas from the Midwest, and *The city commission raised city taxes 20% this month. On Sept. 7, taxpayers of record in the county voted down creation of a hospital district, 327-253.