Hoquiam’s School Board Prioritizes Local Business Over Outsiders
While Hoquiam mandates that local contractors perform school heating work, Aberdeen officials look to Tacoma for technical installations.
The story, cleaned up
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The Hoquiam school board has set an example worthy of all praise and alike creditable to the board and the city. Aberdeen contractors went down to Hoquiam to bid on the heating apparatus to be put into the new schoolhouse there. They were informed by the board that their bid would not be entertained, as local firms could do the work, and as Hoquiam people paid the taxes, the board proposed to spend all the money at home that they could. The Aberdeen school board does not appear to be actuated by the same spirit in putting in the heating apparatus of the new schoolhouse. Wormald & Babcock submitted a verbal bid for a hot water system, but without further ado or notice the board entered into a contract with the Smead Heating and Ventilating company of Tacoma for a device of recent invention at a cost of $3,200.
“As Hoquiam people paid the taxes, the board proposed to spend all the money at home that they could.”
Local procurement battles remain a staple of municipal politics. Just as in 1892, modern school districts in the Pacific Northwest frequently grapple with the tension between wanting the newest proprietary technology from outside vendors and the civic desire to keep tax dollars circulating within the community.
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