The North End's Water Works Fairness Fight
Tacoma’s City Council faces accusations of unequal treatment regarding public infrastructure costs for water hydrants.
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.
North End citizens have a snap. They pay nothing toward the water hydrants of citizens living in other parts of the town, but the other people must pay for their own and then help pay for those in the North End besides. It is a great game and the city council has not wit enough to devise a plan for stopping the injustice. The practice has been going on for two years. The trouble comes over the private water system in the North End, which refuses to put in any hydrants, so when the people want fire protection they come to the city and it puts in the hydrants and pays for them. In other sections, the water mains are put in by the property owners and they have to pay for their own hydrants. Giblett of the Fourth ward, objected to the plan last night, terming it an injustice. Doud and Hawthorne admitted it was not right to make the rest of the city pay for its own and then pay for the North End, but they voted the thing through that way and ordered five new hydrants installed in a North End district.
“It is a great game and the city council has not wit enough to devise a plan for stopping the injustice.”
Debates over municipal infrastructure, local utility districts, and the equitable distribution of tax-funded services remain a cornerstone of Tacoma civic life. Just as residents in 1909 questioned why their tax dollars subsidized another district's private water utility, today's residents frequently scrutinize public-private partnerships and district-specific benefits.
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