Ballard’s Ex-Treasurer Takes the Stand Over a Missing $500
John Keane blames a tax collector who failed to turn over receipts, as the city of Ballard tries to recover an alleged shortage from its former treasurer.
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 suit of the city of Ballard to recover an alleged shortage of $500 from ex-Treasurer John Keane was tried yesterday in the superior court before Judge Osborne.
Keane was on the stand all day and testified that he gave John Peters, the ex-marshal and ex-officio tax collector, credit for the amounts he collected; that Peters failed to turn over the amounts for a period of eight months; that Peters sometimes paid over more than he collected and sometimes less; that at the end of the term he had given Peters an overdraft of $2.50 when he made his account to the city. He corrected the account thus made by him and showed the amount he had received.
Peters admitted that he was short in his accounts and asked Keane to give him credit for what he had collected; that he promised to do so. He said he could not account for the money he had collected. He did not spend it and he did not show what became of it. After his term expired Keane and Edmund effected a settlement and then Peters owed the city something. The book account of the shortage was introduced. The case was argued and submitted.
“Peters admitted that he was short in his accounts and asked Keane to give him credit for what he had collected.”
Municipal accounting scandals are not new. In 1895 Ballard was a separate city, and a $500 shortage was enough to put its former treasurer on trial. The case turned on the messy handoff between officials and the difficulty of tracking public money before modern accounting systems.
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