The Mayor's Report Card
The Post-Intelligencer critiques Mayor Ronald's annual message, specifically challenging his claims regarding police success and municipal debt.
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 annual message of the mayor is an exhaustive document, but his assertion that gambling has been absolutely stopped is incorrect. It is true that spasmodic raids have been made when the evil has become so notorious that the newspapers have started a crusade against it. The mayor seems to have succeeded in convincing himself that the municipal indebtedness has actually been decreased, but he appears to have fallen into the error of including in the total indebtedness of the city, at the time he assumed the reins of government, not only the actual obligations of the city, but also the bonds authorized for the payment of some of these very obligations.
“The protection of life and property and the arrest and prosecution of offenders against the law we believe to be the primary work of the police.”
Accusations of 'spasmodic' police enforcement and creative financial accounting by city leadership are enduring tropes in Seattle's political history. This critique reflects the perennial friction between City Hall's self-assessment and the local press's role as a civic watchdog.
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