The Mayor's Attempt to Purge the Board of Public Works
A political power struggle plays out in court as the Mayor attempts to remove Republican board members under the guise of ethical violations.
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 case of the State of Washington ex rel. G. H. Heilbron vs. J. W. Van Brocklin, to test the validity of the appointment of the latter to the board of public works, came up before Judge Langley on demurrer. When the present Democratic administration came into power, the board of public works was composed of two Republicans and one Democrat. In order to secure control, the mayor sought to remove one Republican member. As the mayor had the power of removal only for cause, and as he was unable to force a resignation, he preferred formal charges against both Republican members, Maj. Rinehart and Mr. Heilbron, accusing them of misfeasance, malfeasance and non-feasance. At the hearing, it was shown that while the members properly attended to their duties as required by the charter, they had not performed duties delegated to the heads of various departments under the board's direction. Furthermore, the mayor found that Maj. Rinehart—a stockholder in the insurance company with which the city did business—was not guilty of a violation, but Mr. Heilbron, who was only a de facto trustee in an agency for an insurance company, was guilty of violating the charter provision prohibiting officials from being interested in city contracts. Counsel for the plaintiff argued that this was a political end carried to an absurd extreme, as insurance rates were fixed by the Pacific Insurance Union and the city's interests were in no way prejudiced.
“A rule of law, Mr. Burleigh contended, must be reasonably interpreted and cannot be carried to absurd lengths to encompass a political end.”
This 1893 battle over the Board of Public Works mirrors the perennial tension in Seattle politics between administrative independence and mayoral control. The weaponization of 'ethics' and 'charter violations' to flip municipal boards remains a standard, if wearying, tactic in local civic disputes today.
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