The Townsite Rebellion
Prominent citizens challenge the legal legitimacy of Aberdeen’s city government to dodge street improvement assessments.
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.
Samuel Benn and his wife have served the city authorities with a complaint, filed in the superior court, in which they ask that the city be restrained from collecting assessments made against their property in the Central addition for street improvements. Their argument rests on several points: they claim the city of Aberdeen was never legally incorporated as a city of the third class; that the city failed to comply with ordinances Nos. 13 and 31 regarding work procedures; that the work was assessed by an assessor rather than a street commissioner; and that the project, costing in excess of $500, was not let by contract to the lowest bidder, nor was any equalization ever performed.
“That the city of Aberdeen was never legally incorporated as a city of the third class.”
Local government authority and the funding of public infrastructure through assessments remain volatile topics in Aberdeen. The question of whether a town has properly followed its own bureaucratic procedures to levy taxes is a perennial feature of civic conflict.
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