Walla Walla Tells the Gas Company: Put Your Wires Underground — and Pay Up
A 25-year gas and electric franchise goes before the council tonight, rewritten to bury every wire on Main and Alder and to hand the city a grand total of $7,750 by 1928.
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 council this evening is expected to take up the ordinance granting to the Walla Walla Gas and Electric company a 25-year gas and electric franchise, which has been before the board in one form and another the past month. The original ordinance introduced by the company and referred to the judiciary committee has been materially changed, and the original is hardly recognizable.
The amended ordinance provides that no wires for the transmission of electricity for any purpose shall be strung, placed or laid except in underground conduits, on Main and Alder streets and on intersecting streets between Main and Alder from the easterly line of First to the westerly line of Fifth, both inclusive.
The company will be required to place all wires now in use in underground conduits within one year. The depth to which conduits must be laid will be a matter of discussion tonight, the judiciary committee leaving the question open, but the company is required to lay them in a manner insuring absolute safety. In placing wires now in use in underground conduits the company must maintain its poles and appliances and repair any damage to streets.
The greatest change is in the compensation the city shall receive from the company, which is specified as follows: $150 each year for the first five years; $200 each year for the second five; $300 each year for the third five; $400 each year for the fourth five; $500 each year for the fifth five years — making a total of $7,750 the city would be recompensed in the 25 years. It is also provided that during the life of the franchise the price charged consumers shall be reasonable.
“It is also provided that during the life of the franchise the price charged consumers shall be reasonable.”
Everything in this fight is still being fought today: how long a utility franchise should run, what the company pays for the public right-of-way, and whether wires belong underground. The striking part is the price — $7,750 for twenty-five years of a monopoly on Main and Alder. Modern Walla Walla franchise negotiations are argued in millions, but the bargain is the same one: a city trading its streets for power.
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