That's The Brakes

By Jon A. Brake

What can I say? The Manhattan School Board made a good decision Wednesday night.

The School District will be purchasing between fifty and two hundred desktop computers this summer. At the board meeting
the staff gave the members a bid recap on three bids. Each computer will cost the district $1,151.00. The low and best bid
was from Fox Business Systems of Manhattan. The other bids were Gateway 2000 at $1,416.00 and Dell at $1,160.00.
One board member brought out that the Dell computer was only $9 more and it was a name brand.

The staff told the board that both computers had the same Intel Pentium III processor and the other specifications were the
same. PLUS this is a local business. The vote was 6-0 to purchase the computers from Fox.

Good choice.

The City, County and the School District have used every reason under the sun, to purchase out side of Manhattan. It is
about time the good guys win one.

A $200,000 purchase in Manhattan will help many people. The business will be helped and the employees will be helped and
other taxpayers will be helped. That $200,000 will be turned over three times in this community.

The staff and school board did the right thing if awarding the contract to Fox. First of all they were the low bidder. Second,
the money will stay in Manhattan. And third, the staff told the board that they had very good service from the company in
past years.

The City, County and School Board should take another look and awarding contracts to companies from Manhattan and
Riley County. It’s good business.