The Price of a City's Ambition

To the Honorable Mayor and Common Council of the City of Seattle: Your Committee on Streets, to whom was referred the petition of J. M. Parks and others asking for the grading of Mill Street, begs to report that we fully realize the importance of Mill Street as a general thoroughfare. We are convinced that the street ought to be graded; indeed, we are of the opinion that it was a great mistake that it was not among the first streets to receive attention from the hands of the city government. We find, however, that there is now outstanding about $70,000 of unpaid grade scrip for work already done on the different streets. Property owners are refusing to pay their grade taxes—resulting in litigation, fault-finding, and bickerings, having a tendency to depreciate our credit as a city, our scrip now selling on the market at a heavy discount. The above work will necessarily be very expensive, there being deep cuts and heavy fills. Owing to the stringency of the money market, we doubt whether one-third of the property owners along the street either have the money on hand or know where they can obtain the same if the work be ordered. Your committee are of opinion that it would be a very doubtful stroke of financial policy at the present to order the work done. We recommend that the petition for the present be laid on the table, hoping that in the near future times may so change for the better that the work may be prosecuted.