A Stranger Got the Band Stand Contract. A Taxpayer Wants to Know Why.
In a letter to the editor, an Olympia man asks the city council why local builders who have 'grappled for their homes and families here for years' were never even invited to bid.
OLYMPIA, Wash., April 11, 1892.
Editor Tribune: Please permit me a short space, in your considerate columns, in behalf of right and due respect to our home people. My impression has always been that the people of Olympia was and is ever willing to extend that fatherly and motherly consideration to her people in reach of her embrace; but it now looks as though there was a corner on her gratitude, if the band stand contract is any criterion. Here a stranger pops up and asserts his great magnitude through the press, of what grandeur he has added to the architectural fraternity in some distant city. Of course I would not object to churches, colleges and societies encircling their strong arms around all the noble families from the grandfather down; but when a committee of our city council extends such embraces I think they should explain why our old contractors, who have at least sufficient tact to erect a band stand, and who have grappled for their homes and families here for years, should be excluded from receiving at least an opportunity to lift their hats to our free hearted committee.
S. E. Barr.
“I think they should explain why our old contractors, who have at least sufficient tact to erect a band stand, and who have grappled for their homes and families here for years, should be excluded from receiving at least an opportunity to lift their hats to our free hearted committee.”
Substitute 'consultant' for 'stranger' and this letter could run in the paper this week. Olympia's fights over whether city contracts go to local firms or to out-of-town specialists with glossy portfolios are as old as the band stand, and the underlying question — is a public contract a purchase or a patronage — has never really been settled.
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