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Another city council sidewalk scandal

Here’s something I ran across in the May 6, 1920, State Journal city council reports. A report by the Chief of Police and City Attorney was presented to the Council, giving the results of an investigation into – with apologies to Dave Barry, I am not making this up – the theft of a large amount of gravel from the surface of Ormond Street, resulting in a giant hole in the street. The report very fairly notes that “The removing of this gravel and making this large hole in the street constitutes a nuisance, and the city is under obligation to remove the same.”

Based on the police report and the depositions also printed with the article, the basic facts seem to be this: Louis Neller hired a teamster named William Riley to haul gravel from a spot near Ormond Street to be used in the construction of sidewalk in the Franklin Park Subdivision. (I am not sure where that subdivision is.) It turned out the gravel was unsuitable for sidewalk construction. According to Riley, Neller then directed him to take the gravel from Ormond Street, which Riley believed Neller was authorized to do. Riley’s brother Warren, who worked with him, backed up Riley’s version of the story in his own deposition. Ed Schneeberger (who has made previous appearances in this blog, including the one that led me to uncover the Saga of the Bum Walks) was involved with the sidewalk construction and stated that Neller visited the construction site frequently, and told Schneeberger that Riley was in his employ and hauling the gravel at his direction.

And now for the spicy part. This scandal involves more than just making a giant hole in a public street, because Louis Neller was in fact Alderman Neller at the time all this took place. The city charter forbids a council member from being interested in a contract with the city. Neller claimed that he did not have a contract with the city, but instead sold gravel to Riley who sold gravel to the city. Schneeberger’s and Riley’s depositions both contradict this. Riley states that he was merely paid hourly to acquire and haul gravel, and Neller had him turn over the city’s payment for the gravel. Neller, then, was ripping off gravel from the city and then selling it back to the city, according to this account. The investigation report indicates that this would make Neller criminally liable for violating the city charter.

Neller told the Chief of Police that “he had better proceed with some care” because the investigation might find that “a member of the Board of Police and Fire Commissioners” was also involved with inappropriate gravel procurement. By this he meant Frank L. Young of Young Brothers & Daley (who had previously been an alderman, and as such made an appearance in the Saga of the Bum Walks). The investigation found this accusation to be without merit.

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Our Role Model: Oscar L. McKinley

A photo of O.L. McKinley
Oscar L. McKinley

This blog is adopting Oscar L. McKinley (1866-1923) as its symbol (“mascot” sounds undignified). McKinley is best known to regular readers as the alderman who spoke these famous words to Alderman McKale during a “wordy tilt” about sidewalks: “You violated the ordinance, undoubtedly, and failed to put your name upon the walks. Your name is not upon the walk in the photograph.” Often when I see a new sidewalk laid without being properly stamped, I shake my head in disapproval and say, “Your name is not upon the walk!”

According to a report of his death in the State Journal of July 28, 1923, in addition to being the second ward alderman for 16 years, McKinley was also the manager of the Lansing branch of the Wynkoop, Hallenbeck & Crawford printing concern for 25 years, and for more than 30 years was involved with the Lansing City Directory.

The Capital Area District Library’s local history collection online has a booklet titled Pictorial Souvenir of the Police and Fire Departments (well worth perusing in full for the vintage ads) from which I have drawn the photo of Alderman McKinley that now decorates the blog. I am reproducing the pictures of the entire City Council below. The booklet dates from 1913, and the “wordy tilt” happened in 1914, so now you can picture the City Council as it was then. The two aldermen called out by McKinley for laying “bum walk” were McKale and Young.

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Anniversary

I realized last night that I had forgotten to observe the anniversary of the blog. It launched on August 7, 2020, with a photo of an undated O & M stamp on Regent Street. On the anniversary, without intending it, I also published a photo of an undated O & M stamp on Regent Street.

I have posted here every day for over a year, and have featured a different stamp or sidewalk feature every day. I also had a rule that the photo had to be taken that day. If I saw more than one interesting stamp, tough; I didn’t let myself bank any. This was partly so that my blog and my daily walking habit would mutually reinforce each other. It worked; I also have not missed a day of taking a walk in over a year.

Still, I told myself that once a year had passed I could re-evaluate the blog. Perhaps I could start banking stamps for later, or drop to three- or four-times-a-week posting. The fact that I have begun finding it difficult to find new contractors or unusual stamps to write about on the east side (my usual walking grounds) is part of the incentive to scale back. The other part is my impending return to in-person work and hours of commuting every week.

As Aristotle knew, though, it’s hard – even painful – to break a habit this solidified. I’m also much better at being perfect than being good. Being good slips away from me quickly. For another couple of weeks I will probably continue daily updates, but will make a shift to less frequent posting once work resumes. In the meantime I have to decide what that will look like, and how to be religious about it.

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The Saga of the “Bum Walks”

I discovered this article a week or so ago, after my husband showed me the Schneeberger & Koort stamp he found, and I immediately bubbled over with absurd delight. Most likely, I will never again find an article about sidewalks that will cause me to giggle and wring my hands excitedly every time I re-read it, as this one has done. I knew this one was too good to leave to the OCR version I turned up at Newspapers.com, but the university where I work has the State Journal on microfilm, so I took the unusual step of frivolously using my library privileges to get a PDF of it delivered to my account. It only adds to my delight that some student worker at my university library had to crank through microfilm finding this for me.

The article is an August 11, 1914, State Journal account of a Lansing city council dust-up. One reason it is such a gem is that it references names that have previously appeared here in the blog: not just the newly-discovered Schneeberger & Koort, but my familiar old favorite V.D. Minnis. The drama also involves John Sovey, described as “a former cement contractor.” I find John Sovey’s name suspiciously similar to that of J.F. (John Fred) Sowa. I know that Sowa’s family later changed its surname to Sova, probably because it was already pronoucned that way and they wanted it to be phonetic in English. The Sowa stamp I know of is dated 1908 which would make the dates plausible for Sowa to be a “former cement contractor” by 1914. I wonder if John Sovey is the same person as John Sowa/Sova.

I could have sworn that I had referenced brick sellers Young Brothers and Daley in the blog before, but a search shows me to be mistaken. I know I did some research on them, perhaps with the intention of photographing a stamp in front of their business at some point. They are still around and in the same location near the railroad tracks in downtown Lansing.

The city council dispute described in the report involves, in the Journal reporter’s words, “a wordy tilt between Aldermen Young and McKinley over the sidewalk construction contract.” The sparring apparently started with Alderman McKinley bringing out photographs of broken sidewalks, following up on a charge he laid the previous week that “both Young Brothers and Daley and Alderman McKale had laid a lot of ‘bum’ walk in the city” (emphasis and delight all mine). Alderman Young is described as having an interest in Young Brothers Realty, which I assume is somehow connected to Young Brothers and Daley. McKale accuses Young Brothers Realty of being the cause of 87 broken sections of sidewalk in just two blocks of a subdivision they developed. These bum sidewalks were built by Schneeberger and Koort, so Alderman Young tries to shift the blame to the contractors.

Young then tries for a turnabout. The story gets a little confusing here, but if I am understanding Young correctly, McKinley has previously stated that sidewalk-fan-favorite V.D. Minnis is the only capable sidewalk contractor, yet the city has allowed Minnis to subcontract his city-contracted sidewalk work to less reputable contractors at a profit of two cents per foot. Say it ain’t so, Verner!

The entire article is a delight from beginning to end, including some wonderful verbatim banter between the aldermen. I can’t do justice to all of it in summary, so I am just going to reproduce it below under the sincere belief that it is no longer under copyright protection. I’ll end by giving a well-deserved spotlight to one more quotation, then please, go read the rest of the article.

“You violated the ordinance, undoubtedly, and failed to put your name upon the walks,” replied Alderman McKinley. “Your name is not upon the walk in the photograph.”

Alderman McKale did not deny the charge.

For shame!