Consolidating City Hall
Kennewick officials eye the Eakin building to house the city clerk, police, and fire station under one roof.
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If all goes well the city official family may be comfortably housed in a new home soon after the first of next month. For some time Mayor Sherk has been negotiating for the rental of the Eakin building at Second and Pacific streets to be used as a city hall and a central fire station. The mayor figures that the move will not only give the city clerk and the council much more desirable quarters, but quite an item in rent can be saved. The city is now renting the old bank building as a city hall and the Henneberry building on Front street as a central fire station and is contributing to the public library which rents the Anion building on Third street. The plan is to give up these three buildings and to house the three departments in the Eakin Building.
“The mayor figures that the move will not only give the city clerk and the council much more desirable quarters, but quite an item in rent can be saved.”
City councils are perpetually debating the efficiency of centralizing municipal infrastructure. The move from disparate rented offices to a single city building reflects the early 20th-century push toward professionalized local governance.
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