| Glynn appointed a special commissioner, John Godfrey Saxe, to consider the charges. The BPC instructed Downer to prepare an affidavit detailing the exact status of the BRPR work. Downer’s rebuttal appeared in numerous press accounts. He asserted that the charges were "hot air" and that the complainants were trying to force the BPC into an extravagant and wasteful use of the taxpayer’s money by conducting condemnation hearings rather than negotiating for direct purchase. He stated that the parkway commissioners considered it a violation of the public trust to burden the taxpayers with the cost of condemnation proceedings that would only benefit "those who consider a public project their legitimate prey." Downer asserted that the charges reflected the "dissatisfaction of a lot of politicians and condemnation sharps" whom he claimed were dissatisfied because "the commission [was] spending millions of dollars in a great public improvement and [was] spending the money economically, while they [had] no finger in the pie and no hope." Downer emphasized that the BPC, rather than neglecting its duties, had made significant progress by acquiring land valued at $2,525,000. He estimated that the BPC policy of acquisition by donation and direct purchase would save taxpayers a million dollars.(98) Although the complainants were not immediately made known to the BPC, it did not take long to ascertain their identity and ascribe their motives. Local newspapers quickly reported the names of the three citizens. Downer noted that one of the men was a former Bedford supervisor and another was a local real estate appraiser. He accused all three of acting on behalf of property owners who had not accepted BPC prices and held out for exorbitant prices. According to Downer, the men were looking for the hefty fees they could earn if the property was acquired by condemnation. The appraiser had earlier sought to benefit from the BRPR project by offering to serve as an expert appraiser in condemnation proceedings, which the BPC hoped to delay as long as possible.(99) Within weeks after the charges of "willful neglect" were made, the BPC released its 1914 report. The timing of the report was coincidental to the charges against the commission but the publication provided an opportune response to the accusations. The White Plains Daily Record summarized the report and declared that anyone who read it would wonder how the complainants could claim that the BPC had neglected its duties and accomplished nothing. Other newspapers supported the BPC as well. "If ever there was a commission that appeared to be working with the one idea of conserving the interests of the people and of saving the taxpayer’s money," a Yonkers editorial noted, it was "the one looking after the Bronx Parkway." The writer praised the BPC for purchasing property at the lowest possible prices without wasting a dollar. The charges against the commissioners were eventually dismissed without a formal hearing, although Saxe ordered that the BPC negotiations for land sales had to end by December 1915 and that condemnation proceedings should start no later than January 1916.(100) The commissioners had asked Saxe not to announce when condemnation proceedings would start. They feared that this would encourage property owners who did not want to accept the BPC’s "reasonable values" to hold out for the higher prices they assumed would be granted through condemnation proceedings. The BPC was also concerned that agents interested in earning fees from the condemnation proceedings would urge property owners to wait and demand higher prices, further driving up the overall costs of the parkway.(101) |
|
|
|
|
| (98)"Governor
Glynn Asked to Remove Bronx Parkway Commissioners," New York
Herald, July 7, 1914; "See Plot in Bronx Boulevard Charges,"
New York Tribune, July 7, 1914. |
|
