85 Years Ago: Parking meters come to Seattle
SMA’s holdings include a set of issues of Seattle Municipal News, the newsletter of the Municipal League. The News covered local government at the city, county, and state levels, including observations of activity and policies in all departments on topics ranging from traffic to elections. SMA’s collection is not complete, but the newsletters can provide perspective on City actions and controversies.
The September 27, 1941, edition of Seattle Municipal News has a front-page story entitled, “Let’s Have Meters!” At the time, Seattle was in the midst of legislative and legal turmoil over installing parking meters on downtown streets. The article claimed that from the time the issue was first broached, “the subject has been bandied about like a gas-filled balloon, never coming down to earth.”
The City Council had passed an ordinance in March of that year authorizing the purchase and installation of parking meters. The Board of Public Works studied the issue, put the project out to bid, and awarded a contract. However, the language of the contract differed from the Board’s specifications, which provided an opportunity for a lawsuit by those against the implementation of meters. Indeed, future governor Albert Rosellini wrote to the Council claiming that all of the bids were invalid, and added a reminder that the State Supreme Court had ruled meters were “proper for regulatory purposes only and definitely improper from a revenue standpoint.”
The Municipal News article claimed the contract was perfectly acceptable, and deplored how councilmembers who supported the meter plan “have been subjected to almost-libelous attacks by forces opposing parking meters. These attacks have not been backed by any presentation of evidence, and on the basis of the available facts are clearly unjustified and unfair.”
The article refrained from commenting on the merits of the lawsuit, but did express hope that the city would prevail, ending the “petty bickering” and allowing the city “at long last, [to] have its meters.” This wish came true by the following year.
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