The Rural Infrastructure Fight
Farmers in Hover confront Kennewick business leaders over years of neglected road funding and tax inequity.
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.
Good roads was the subject which held the attention of a number of Kennewick business men and residents of Hover at a meeting in the Hover school house. The Hover people made it very evident that they wanted a better road down the valley and expected the Kennewick business men, as their neighbors, to help them get what they want. H. S. Hughes quoted figures to show that in the last eight years, the district from the end of the oiled road to the Wallula ferry had paid approximately $33,000 into the district and general road funds, and of that sum, not even $3,000 had been returned to them. The people of the lower valley are getting tired of paying for the other fellow's roads while they are forced to put up with sand and chuck holes.
“The people of the lower valley are getting tired of paying for the other fellows' roads while they are forced to put up with sand and chuck holes.”
The frustration over tax dollars flowing from rural areas into city-centric infrastructure projects is a perennial conflict in regional Washington politics, echoing modern debates over transit and road maintenance funding.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.