Muscatine Journal

Wapello school to get new locks
By Jim Rudisill Muscatine Journal Correspondent

WAPELLO, Iowa - It's been at least 16 years since teachers and staff at the Wapello Elementary building have been able to lock the building's interior classroom doors, but that will soon change, after the school board approved an $8,870 re-keying proposal during its regular monthly meeting Thursday.

The Board accepted the bid of 3D Locksmith, Muscatine, for the work. Jim's Lock and Safe, Burlington, bid $13,847.80 on the project.

Superintendent John Weidner said the school's custodial staff had reported none of the building's (40) interior classroom doors had likely been locked for the past 16 years and no one even knew where any of the keys for the existing locks were stored.

"This has the potential for a safety factor (if) there is an intruder in the building and (it) must go into lockdown," Weidner said.

You know, apropos of nothing... Even allowing for an utterly ridiculous service call/trip charge of $70, the accepted bid still works out to $220.00 per rekeyed door. Now granted, they were pretty smart to turn down the $344.45 per door rekey bid, but they ACCEPTED one for $220.00 - PER DOOR!

Now bear with me, I'm just thinking out loud here...

If this really IS just a rekey, as the article implies, if we had done the job, even if they had flown us out, First Class, put us up at a hotel, First Class, given a per diem, and asked for a custom Master Key System, it STILL would have been cheaper for us to do it, and we charge San Diego prices! LOL! If, by some chance, the bid was for all new classroom function lever hardware (highly unlikely, I don't care HOW long it's been unlocked or the keys have been missing, it's probably still fine) and master keying, we still likely could have come in a good $1500 to $2000 less than the "winning" bid.

Sheesh...

Good Lord City/State/Federal Governments, pay attention! Do some due diligence, find out what rekeying actually costs before you start soliciting bids, and especially before accepting bids. Why pay this kind of money? Do your schools have everything they need? Are your streets well maintained, pot holes gone, etc.? Do your local Big Brother/Big Sister Clubs have what they need, or could they use more...? There was nothing else the Council could have used some of this money for?

Just thinking out loud...

kim

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