Excerpt from City of Somerville Annual Reports, 1880 It has been urged against the action taken by the city. To which I have alluded, that the whole matter was in the hands of the Water Board, and the City Council had no authority or power to act. This is simply a mistake, which a moment's investigation on the part of any person would dissipate. The authority of the Water Board extends solely to the management of the constructed works; and any action by it in the premises under consideration, unless first authorized by the City Council, or afterwards ratified by it, would be a nullity, and of no binding force. The Boston Water Board, with similar powers to our own, first applied to their city government for authority to negotiate with our committee, which was duly granted, but the question of ratifying the contract was reserved, and we are still obliged to get the assent of that body before it will go into effect. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.