Ballard Goes Dark
Facing a fiscal crisis, the Ballard City Council votes to cut off the neighborhood's electric streetlights to save $250 a month.
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.
After September 1, Ballard will have no electric lights unless the citizens are public-spirited enough to pay for them by private subscription. After the city treasurer's report was read Tuesday night, the council decided that retrenchment was absolutely necessary to run the city government and keep within the limits of indebtedness allowed by law. The present debt is $19,000, which is only $4,000 less than the limit, and as the present assessment roll will give the city only $12,000 for the current expenses for next year, there was danger that the city would legislate itself out of existence as a corporate body. Economy and retrenchment was therefore necessary, and the council began by abolishing the electric lights, thus saving $250 a month, although the Ballard Electric Light Company offered to keep the lights burning for two months for $150 a month, a sum somewhat less than the operating expenses.
“After September 1, Ballard will have no electric lights unless the citizens are public-spirited enough to pay for them by private subscription.”
Ballard, once an independent city before its 1907 annexation, dealt with the same budgetary pressures that often define municipal governance today. The threat of 'legislating itself out of existence' serves as a stark reminder of the fragile financial foundations of early Seattle neighborhoods.
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