Policy Change Leaves Fire Response Manned by a Skeleton Crew
A fire on Eighth Street leaves a woman injured and sparks an investigation into why the police patrol wagon failed to respond, revealing the consequences of city austerity.
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.
When Acting Mayor Miller learned yesterday morning that the patrol wagon did not respond to the fire on Eighth street, near Stewart, in which Mrs. W. G. Jenkins was injured, he wanted to know the reason why. A reporter found that the failure to respond was due to a recent order of the police commissioners doing away with the night registering clerk. While it has been the custom to send the patrol wagon to fires, there is no ordinance compelling the officer in charge to do so. On this occasion, the wagon did not go because it would have left the police station with only one man on duty, effectively leaving the station unprotected.
“The patrol wagon did not go to the fire because it would have left the police station with only one man.”
The tension between municipal cost-cutting measures and the provision of essential emergency services is a recurring debate in Seattle politics, much like contemporary debates over police department staffing levels and budget priorities.
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