A Taxpayer Tries to Stop the City From Writing Checks It Can’t Cover
Francis Hoffman and the Olympia Hardware Company ask a judge to block further city warrants, arguing Olympia has blown past its debt limit.
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.
Francis Hoffman, for himself and the Olympia Hardware Company, made application before Judge Robinson this morning for a writ of prohibition to restrain the city from issuing any more warrants on the grounds that the city had already exceeded by far the limit of indebtedness. Judge Robinson denied the application, refusing to issue the writ unless notice were first given to the city that application for a writ would be made. Mr. Hoffman will now institute regular proceedings in the superior court and serve the city with notice that on Monday next, 11 o’clock, he will apply for a restraining order. He brings the suit as a taxpayer. It will raise the same point as the bond question, as to whether or not the city has the right to issue warrants in excess of its indebtedness limit.
“He brings the suit as a taxpayer. It will raise the same point as the bond question, as to whether or not the city has the right to issue warrants in excess of its indebtedness limit.”
Debt limits, warrant issuance and taxpayer standing are still the mundane machinery of local government, and the question of how much a city may borrow before courts intervene remains live. Olympia’s 1891 suit shows the same fiscal arguments in an earlier boom.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.