City Hall Moves to Consolidate Sewer Oversight
The Seattle Board of Health moves to cut the 'unnecessary' sewer inspector position, arguing the city engineer and plumbing inspector can easily absorb the light workload of ten inspections a month.
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At a special meeting of the board of health, the report regarding the abolition of the office of sewer inspector was adopted and ordered to be submitted to the corporation counsel for an ordinance. Dr. P. B. M. Miller reported that the sewer inspector's duties—averaging only ten connections a month—were largely redundant, as the city engineer's office already controls the planning. The board recommended a new system where householders submit plans directly to the city engineer and pay a deposit to the board of public works for construction. The board concluded that the plumbing inspector, John Brown, could easily absorb the remaining duties, noting that the current sewer inspector's claims of long hours on site were 'all bosh.'
“Dr. Miller said that the statements of the sewer inspector that he had spent hours in making an inspection while a connection was being made was all bosh.”
The bureaucratic friction between the health department and public works over infrastructure management mirrors modern-day debates in Seattle regarding which municipal departments should oversee housing and utility permitting to reduce costs and delays.
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