The Street Contractor’s Gamble
When the city of Tacoma failed to pay up on street improvements, a contractor was left holding the bag—and a pocket full of worthless paper.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Walsh, the contractor for the Ninth Street improvements, visited the Post-Intelligencer yesterday to discuss his ongoing dispute with city officials. 'I undertook the Ninth Street contract and shortly afterward the contract was assigned to me,' Walsh explained. 'I relied on the city to handle the payments. I moved ahead, and all went well until the assessment was made upon the property owners, and then I wanted to quit. City Attorney Carroll assured me that it would be all right and told me to go ahead, and that the warrants would be drawn to pay for this improvement. With this assurance, we did proceed. [But now] the city refuses to pay them. The city warrants for that street were placed in a bank, and the warrants of the workmen were paid by the bank on the security. I have prepared a statement of the work done on Ninth Street and submitted it to the City Council. By its showing, there is about $700 due me after the payment of all claims. We asked the city to pay that, as was advised by City Attorney Carroll; they refuse not only to do this but, as I learn now, they even refuse to issue the new warrants.' Walsh remains in a state of limbo, unable to collect on his labor, as legal disputes regarding the property assessments continue to drag on in court.
“They say that I am to wait for the assessment to be collected from the property owners, and that will not be until the resistance to the claim now pending in Court is by the city settled.”
Walsh’s struggle with city bureaucracy, vague municipal promises, and the long, grinding legal delays surrounding infrastructure projects feels remarkably familiar to modern Seattleites. The frustration of being a small-scale contractor waiting on 'warrants' (or payment vouchers) highlights the historic vulnerability of those who build the city when civic promises collide with budget mismanagement.
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