Port Angeles Taxpayers Revolt
Citizens unite to investigate city council corruption and the misuse of public warrants after the council voted to pay its own members.
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.
A taxpayers' union has been organized in Port Angeles, and has employed attorneys to investigate the action of the city council in having a $500 warrant paid to ex-Mayor Smith to be used in securing for this city an appropriation of a portion of the money received by the government from the sale of the Port Angeles reserve. The last council voted each of its members the sum of $100 for their services while acting as a board of equalization. This, together with other matters, will be investigated by the taxpayers' union, they having agreed to employ Benton Embree, an attorney of this city, and Struve, Allen, Hughes & McMicken, of Seattle, as their legal advisers.
“The object of this society shall be the mutual protection of its members and law-abiding citizens of Port Angeles and Clallam county in general, in any matters concerning the acts of the city or county officers.”
The formation of a taxpayers' union to police city hall graft in 1894 reflects the recurring cycles of municipal accountability battles in Washington's smaller growing cities.
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