The Battle Over the Waterfront Fireboat
City council debates whether the general public or wealthy industrial interests should pay for the city's new fire protection infrastructure.
The story, cleaned up
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It will cost the city about $122,500 for a fire tug, according to plans and estimates presented to the fire and water committee of the council yesterday afternoon by H. B. Spear of the firm of McCoy & Spear. Whether the council will take up the project now or wait until the next tax levy is made is not yet determined. The Northern Pacific Railway has been clamoring for a fire boat and has offered to help pay the cost of building one. Other waterfront people would also help, if given a chance, but Councilman Doud wants to head this off. He wants the city to pay the whole bill. It will cost the city $15,000 a year to maintain the fire boat after it is built, which some of the councilmen think is enough obligation for the city to assume at the expense of the general taxpayers for the especial benefit of the railway corporations and big mills on the waterfront.
“Some of the councilmen think is enough obligation for the city to assume at the expense of the general taxpayers for the especial benefit of the railway corporations and big mills.”
This 1909 dispute highlights the perennial question of who benefits from public infrastructure—private corporations or the public at large—a tension still very much alive in current waterfront development and industrial tax-break discussions.
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