To the editor:

I read with interest the story on financials involved in the city income and expenses. I took several accounting classes in college and never appreciated them until I became a manager and discovered the things that could be done with accounting.

When I read about the city water plant I remembered a story my grandfather had told me. He worked at the water plant from about 1930 to about 1960. He was hired the same day he was laid off from the Monarch Manufacturing plant and it was just by chance as he walked home that he bumped into the water plant manager, who he had helped build his garage. He just happened to ask him if he would like a job as he had just lost someone who had taken a job in Oklahoma, and so began a long period of employment.

He was one of the few people on the east side who had a job during the Great Depression. As with all jobs, there’s always that disclaimer: “and other duties as assigned.”

For my grandpa, that was to keep the books for the water department on top of caring for the plant. Grandpa took great pride in his work and his job and whenever people would discuss the water plant, if the subject of the water plant never making money, it would set him off.

Again, the things you can do with accounting. I wasn’t very old but I remember he got upset and was explaining to my dad how the water plant always made money, it was how you accounted for it.

It was a bewildering story because it didn’t seem to make sense ’til many years later. Grandpa said that the city charged an easement fee on the water department for the use of the city right of way for the water pipes. That money was then used to electrify Webster City. I have to admit after all these years, that was some creative thinking on somebody’s part. It would have made the transfer of money a lot easier and during the Depression, avoided a public outcry.

Again, it’s just a story. I have another one for another day. A story I started looking into over a year and half ago and 2,500 pages later reads like a comic tragedy. It’s amazing how over time stories intertwine and expand.

But that’s for another day.

Michael Dingman

Webster City