The Engineer Who Says Olympia Stiffed Him for Sewer Plans
A civil engineer hired to draft Olympia’s sewers says the city accepted his $700 bid, starved him of data, then canceled his contract and paid another man $1,500 for plans he calls a public nuisance.
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.
To the Editor of the Tribune:
I notice in The Tribune of December 5th a letter from Mr. Whitham relating to the sewer plans recently prepared for your city by Mr. Camp, and I desire to make a statement of my experience with the present city council with regard to plans for their proposed sewerage.
Last year, while I was in your city engaged by the Olympia Water Works Company as their engineer, I was requested by the committee of the council having the matter in charge to make them a proposition for plans for sewers. The committee was composed of Messrs. O’Brien, Murphy, and one other whom I cannot at this moment name. I had given the matter considerable study in connection with the water works, and made them a proposition to prepare complete plans and specifications and present a report on the subject for the sum of $700. This proposition was reported favorably to the council, and August 6, 1890, the proposition was accepted by the council. One provision of my proposition was that the city should supply me with certain data. I was to have the plans completed in time for the beginning of work in the spring.
I left Olympia in the latter part of August, and the committee promised to send me the data necessary immediately, but they failed to do so until early in December. Upon the receipt of the information desired, I immediately began preparation of the plans, and had them substantially completed when, replying to my request for certain additional facts which had been omitted in their previous communication, the council notified me through their attorney “that according to a provision of the charter in force at the time of my proposition, the city was not bound by any contract unless the same was authorized by ordinance and signed by the clerk or other person in behalf of the city duly authorized; that I consequently had no contract with the city, and the present city council did not deem it advisable nor expedient to make one at that time, considering the stringency of the times.” The above is a quotation from a letter from the city attorney, under date of February 4th, 1891.
When I received this letter I had put two months’ labor on the plans and had them nearly completed, and immediately wrote to the members of the committee to whom the proposition had been made, and also to the members of the council, calling their attention to the injustice of the proceeding and asking for a reconsideration of their conclusions. In writing to them, to prevent any possible impression that I might have asked more than the work was worth, I called their attention to the fact that the cities of Victoria and Vancouver had quite recently paid Mr. Herring, of New York, $1,500 for similar work. I not only did not succeed in securing the instructions to complete this work, but not one member of the council had the courtesy to reply to my letter in any way.
I notice by the paper that Mr. Murphy, who was one of the committee which requested a proposition from me and who voted for its acceptance, is now the chairman of the committee which has paid Mr. Camp $1,500 for plans. I have not troubled the public with my experience with your council before, but in connection with the recent letter of Mr. Whitham it has seemed to me that my experience might prove interesting. I have never heard any doubt expressed as to my ability to handle the sewerage matter intelligently, and think your people are probably pretty well satisfied from results achieved by your Water Works Company that as a hydraulic engineer I know something about my business.
I have not had the pleasure of seeing the plans presented by Mr. Camp for the work, but I have read extracts from his report published in your paper, and also those given in Mr. Whitham’s letter, and should deem it a most unfortunate thing if the city put in such a reservoir as Mr. Camp contemplates. The report on the sewerage system of San Diego, from which extracts are given in your paper, is signed by one of the foremost hydraulic engineers of the Pacific Coast, Mr. James D. Schuyler. Such a reservoir is radically wrong in principle and something which is bound to be offensive and an expensive public nuisance. While I am not in the habit of criticizing the professional work of others, I am unfortunate enough to own some real estate in your city, and think I have reason to object to any such thing being foisted upon the community on this ground.
Yours truly, W. W. Curtis
“I had put two months’ labor on the plans and had them nearly completed... not one member of the council had the courtesy to reply to my letter in any way.”
Consultant contracts, incomplete data and public works that outlive their budget are familiar municipal stories. Curtis’s letter is a reminder that fights over who gets paid to plan a city’s infrastructure—and whether the plans are any good—are as old as the sewers themselves.
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