The City Council's Expensive Do-Over
After the Supreme Court tossed out a faulty assessment, the City of Seattle passes an emergency ordinance to squeeze residents for a new payment on a completed sewer project.
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.
The City Council of Seattle, in the month of July 1892, passed an ordinance for the reassessment of South Fourteenth street from Washington street to Pine street. Whereas original ordinance No. 1,273, ordering the improvement, was valid, the subsequent levy and proceedings were quashed by the Supreme Court of Washington due to informality and non-compliance with charter provisions. Now, to provide a fund to defray the cost of the already completed improvement—totaling $23,146.20—the city has established Local Improvement District No. 29. Property owners are to be assessed $21,018.54, with the remainder paid by the city from its general road fund. The assessment will be collected under the mode of immediate payment.
“The supreme court of the state of Washington... decided that such levy and all proceedings... must be quashed, but expressly reserved to the said city the right to make a new assessment.”
Municipal bonds and local improvement districts (LIDs) remain the standard—and often contentious—way Seattle funds its massive infrastructure projects. This story highlights how the city has been wrestling with the legal technicalities of taxing property owners for civic upgrades for over a century.
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