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Las Vegas, A p r il 6, 1929 W—35 Mr# F.H.Knickerbocker, Vice P resid en t, Los Angeles. Lear S ir : The fa u lt y handling o f the q u a rterly re p o rts , r e fe r r e d to in your l e t t e r 110-123 o f March 29, is d i f f i c u l t to exp lain s a t is fa c t o r ily unless the fo o t th at i t occurred at a time o f unusual s tres s w i l l he regarded as an excuse. I t i s w e ll remembered th at the statements were prepared in p e n c il, hut th e ir disappearance can not he accounted f o r . At that time we were a l l v ic tim s to some exten t o f the " f l u ” epidemic which swept the town; tho th is sounds f l a t now i t was n everth eless a fa o to r o f some seriousness then, we were b u sily engaged in the ex tra work o f preparing records fo r a 50% increase in the number o f water consumers fo llo w in g an expansion o f the d is tr ib u tin g system, and at the same time new records had to be mad© ready fo r the year 1929. v?e were alread y thus hard pressed when the passage o f the Boulder Lam B i l l brought a flo o d o f inform ation seekers to the o f f i c e w ith numberless questions r e la te d to , as w e ll as extraneous to , our business# Courteous con sideration s was necessary, fo r the good o f the s e rv ic e , tho i t was more than our working fo r c e could handle e f f i c i e n t l y . Many hours were taken up simply in explanation o f the in d u s tria l s it e s itu a tio n to at le a s t 200 a p p lica n ts, each jf£ whom c a lle d in person or bjr telephone many times d a lly , and some o f whom are s t i l l making in q u ir ie s • Calm and o rd e rly procedure a t o f f i c e rou tin e was im possible, and one f u l l y acquainted w ith con dition s here since December might wonder why more mistakes were not recorded. We do not r e c a ll any previous c r it ic is m along these lin e s , and, as the a c t i v i t i e s described above have tapered o f f con siderably since the dam excitement has abated, and since the o f f i c e records have been systemized to conform w ith the new con d ition s, i t is not l i k e l y that there w i l l be cause fo r c r itic is m in the fu tu re . Yours tr u ly , Walter H# Bracken