Tacoma Park Board at War with Taxpayers
Public officials trade insults with citizens after a lopsided vote against a park bond proposal.
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 Tacoma park board seems to be in bad odor. Its only outside notoriety is that it is composed of 'fossils,' according to the public. President Nelson Bennett made a statement last night on the work of the board, and citizens who have asked for information on park matters are dubbed 'meddlers' and 'anarchists.' 'The people elected us and we are going to do our business and we will not be cajoled,' shouts the park board. It is this spirit of arrogance that killed the park bond proposal by more than three to one recently, which seems to have thrown the park board into a state of shock. There are people who have not yet been born who will give a vote of confidence in a board that tells them it is none of their business what their public servants are doing. People still have a sort of idea that the men they elect to office are their servants, not their masters, and when they seek information they do not care to be slapped in the face. If the figures finally presented by the board are to be commended, it is a plain statement of conditions beforehand, and had it presented any definite plan for spending the $750,000, the vote might have been different. It comes with poor grace for the park board to vent its anger at the people of Tacoma and call names because the voters did not bow to its wishes.
“There are people who have not yet been born who will give a vote of confidence in a board that tells them it is none of their business what their public servants are doing.”
Tacoma's historical tension between the unelected/insular management of public assets and the public's demand for transparency remains a core feature of municipal politics. Just as in 1909, residents continue to leverage the ballot box to check public boards that prioritize grand capital projects over public trust.
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