New Benton County Board Vows to Topple Courthouse Deal
Commissioners Bash and Pratt fire legal counsel and challenge the legitimacy of the previous board's construction contracts.
The Benton County commissioners' board has taken a dramatic turn under Commissioners Bash and Pratt. Seeking to undo the previous board's actions, they have fired the legal firm of Zent, Powell and Davis and retained Donworth & Todd of Seattle as special counsel. The board has moved to notify the Ferro Concrete Company that their courthouse contract is null and void, and they no longer recognize A. Warren Gould as supervising architect. Chairman Bash instructed the county prosecutor to represent the county as a whole rather than just the Prosser section, signaling a major shift in the ongoing courthouse controversy.
“The commissioners are there for the purpose of representing Benton county and not any one end or section of it.”
This power struggle over the location of the Benton County courthouse and the contracts surrounding it reflects deep-seated regional rivalries that often defined early 20th-century Washington politics.
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