Tacoma Bets $300,000 of Its Own Credit on a Municipal Power Plant
With the engineer due Monday for the Nisqually plant, the sinking fund commission puts the bonds on the market — and invites anyone, including the state school fund, to bid.
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.
With the engineer coming next Monday to begin the work on the new Nisqually power plant for the city, the sinking fund commission, consisting of the mayor, controller, treasurer and president of the council, today held a meeting and authorized the sale of the $300,000 in city bonds to provide the sinews of war for the prosecution of the project.
These bonds will be advertised for 30 days and it is expected they will be taken by the state, the money now being in the common school fund.
It will be a free bid for everybody, however, and if private bond brokers will pay more and take the bonds at a less rate of interest they will get them.
The bonds will run for 20 years.
“It will be a free bid for everybody, however, and if private bond brokers will pay more and take the bonds at a less rate of interest they will get them.”
Tacoma's decision to borrow against its own credit to build a power plant was a gamble on public ownership of energy — the seed of what became Tacoma Public Utilities, still one of the city's largest assets. The mechanics described here, a 20-year bond, an open bid, a public body competing with private brokers, are exactly how the city still finances infrastructure. Then, as now, the fight was over whether the money and the power should sit with the public or with private interests.
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