Wheaton Wire

Issue date: 11/19/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Katie Franklin ‘09 Once the Public Safety signs by Gebbie are broken, they are brought to the dumpsters to be recylced with other mixed wood.

Replacing the consistently broken gate by Gebbie is a "frustrating" use of campus funds says Physical Plant Trades Manager Henry White. Since the start of classes, White and his crew have had to replace the gate over thirty-five times. "It's frustrating when we see it in the morning… and we have to replace it," says White, "knowing that the shop resources and college's resources could be better spent. But we are tasked with keeping that gate in place."

Unlike the other campus entrance points, in which a padlocked steel-pipe fire lane gate blocks the road, the Gebbie gate is made of a wood stock arm attached to an automatic mechanism by a sheer pin. Luckily, the wooden arm is the usual target for vandals.

"I suppose we could put in a steel pipe fire lane gate like you see at other entrances, but that is much less convenient," said White. The gate can be raised by an automatic gate opener, like a garage opener, which is installed in all physical plant trucks, or by the alarm of a fire truck or ambulance in case of emergency. Currently, this is the easiest entrance for chapel functions that are facilitated by vehicle traffic.

Each gate arm costs the school approximately $40. The price involves the labor required to pick up the stock, cut it to the right dimensions, and for the paint shop to individually stencil each gate. The physical plant buys enough stock each time to make approximately twelve gates, which significantly cheapens the cost.

On occasion, vandals will break the sheer pin in the process, which drives up the cost, but this is significantly cheaper than replacing the entire mechanism.

"If the vandal is intent on doing some damage, we'd rather replace the gate arm than spend more money to replace the gate mechanism," said White. "We get a lot of suggestions, 'Perhaps you should put something more substantial,' but that's why we don't."

The gate was installed during the summer of 2001 and has been the target of vandals ever since. From March 2007 to March 2008, the physical plant has replaced over 60 of these gate arms. At the current price, that is a minimum of $240, not counting occasionally replacing the sheer pin.

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