A Judge Freezes Seattle's $118,000 School-Building Fund
Queen Anne Hill residents win a temporary injunction barring the school board from spending 1894 tax money on anything but that year's warrants and new school buildings.
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.
In the case of J. W. Clise, acting for residents of Queen Anne Hill, against School District No. 1 and A. P. Mitten, county treasurer and ex officio treasurer of the board of education, Judge Langley yesterday issued a temporary injunction. It commands the school district, its servants, solicitors, or agents to refrain from paying out $118,558.71 now in the hands of County Treasurer Mitten. The money is school-district tax revenue for 1894 and may be used only to pay warrants issued during the calendar year 1894 and to erect and construct school buildings in the district—not for any other debts of the district.
The injunction takes effect when the plaintiff gives a bond of $1,000, conditioned as required by law. The defendants have taken exception to the order. Judge Langley explained: "It does not affect the contracts of 1894, or the salaries of teachers for the same year. I make this explanation in order to prevent any scare that somebody might try to create as growing out of the temporary injunction in the question of warrants. I do not regard it particularly as a victory for those who wish to build a schoolhouse."
“It does not affect the contracts of 1894, or the salaries of teachers for the same year... I do not regard it particularly as a victory for those who wish to build a schoolhouse.”
Then as now, school construction budgets were a proxy fight over public priorities and neighborhood power. The 1894 injunction turned on whether tax money could be spent only for the purposes authorized—an argument that still echoes in Seattle's school-bond and capital-levy debates.
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