The Unfinished Business of James Street
The City Council is drawing up plans for new street work while a previous project languishes in a half-finished state.
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.
It appears to most people ill-advised on the part of the City Council to be ordering the survey of new streets, advertising, etc., with a view to improvements, consuming time and incurring considerable expenses, when an incomplete job, partially paid for, has been on hand for nearly a year, and is allowed to remain in that condition to the detriment and injury of the whole city. We refer to James street. The city has already expended in its improvement about eight hundred dollars, and has nothing to show for it of value but the interest-bearing warrants. The reason generally accepted for the non-completion of this important piece of work is one far from creditable to the present City Council, and that body owes it to itself to see that this stain is no longer allowed to rest upon it.
“The city has already expended in its improvement about eight hundred dollars, and has nothing to show for it of value but the interest-bearing warrants.”
Municipal infrastructure projects lagging behind schedule is a quintessential Seattle story that has spanned over 140 years. While the streets are paved today, the civic frustration over stalled public works and the questioning of City Council priorities remains a perennial feature of local discourse.
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