The Pig in a Poke
Tacoma city officials rush a $1.75 million water works deal through the council despite lacking inventory records or valuation.
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.
Tacoma city council passed an ordinance submitting to the people a proposition to purchase the water and electric light plant. The first sentence after that body adjourned was: 'My question is how much did it cost to get the ordinance through?' This was made by a member of the council. Chairman Berry, of the light and water committee, and President Boardman, who appeared to be steering the scheme, manifested the grossest kind of ignorance as to what was being purchased. Berry admitted that he had never seen the company's inventory, schedule, or what it was intended to sell for the price now being asked, $1,750,000. Councilman Wright said: 'We do not know what we are buying. There is no sense in putting this question to the people in its present shape.' The assistant engineer, whose ability and honor no one doubts, after a careful examination stated the plant worth $500,000 less than the price which we are submitting to the people. C. B. Wright notified his agents here that the city must 'either fish or cut bait' on the water works question. He told them that if the council did not allow the question of taking the plant off his hands at $1,750,000 to the people at once, then the deal would be off.
“We do not know what we are buying. There is no sense in putting this question to the people in its present shape.”
Public control of utilities has long been a flashpoint in Pacific Northwest politics. This 1893 skirmish over water infrastructure mirrors contemporary debates about municipal broadband and energy, where the tension between private profit and public necessity remains unresolved.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.