The Mayor's Power Grab at City Hall
Mayor Ronald moves to dissolve the police commission, raising alarm about the erosion of Seattle's checks and balances.
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.
Mayor Ronald has gone a step further in the direction of arbitrary power. He has requested the resignations of Police Commissioners Guy, Ledgerwood and Stone. If these gentlemen refuse to resign, he will doubtless remove them from office, finding his supposed authority for so doing in the section of the charter which he quotes in justification of his removal of Chief Rogers. Of course, if the mayor's interpretation of the charter is correct, the whole system of government through commissions has fallen flat; the checks and balances introduced in the city government by the makers of the charter are of no account, and the charter itself is about as meaningless a document as could well be imagined. If the police commissioners permit themselves to be removed, the mayor will doubtless turn his attention to the other boards and will undertake to remove every obstacle to the building up of a complete Democratic machine.
“The checks and balances introduced in the city government by the makers of the charter are of no account, and the charter itself is about as meaningless a document as could well be imagined.”
This 1892 editorial captures the perennial tension in Seattle politics between a strong executive and the city's independent boards. The anxiety over a 'Democratic machine' seizing control through the gutting of commission independence echoes contemporary debates about mayoral versus council authority and the struggle to keep municipal oversight free from partisan or executive capture.
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