Archive for the ‘Johnson Controls Inc / JCI’ Category

My life as an anvil salesman – Pt 3

Friday, January 18th, 2013

Its often said: “Whatcha don’t know can’t hurt you.” That is pretty obvious bullshit.

Like the kid in the car at the intersection next to his buddy’s car about to play “chicken” and race out in front of your car on the highway. It could be life saving to know about that kid trying to out wait his buddy before tearing out in front of your car lest he end up becoming the chicken.. Dammit. Knowing that could have saved the life of my Dad’s student. I still remember how angry my Dad was that his student didn’t make it back to college because he’d ran into the kid who evidently wasn’t the chicken on Highway 169.

Finding out that your fellow boring old white guy politicians call you an “asshole” is not life threatening. Its only disconcerting. It may be the price you pay for selling anvils.

I’m not sure that there is any profit for me facing a possible eighth campaign for the school board… Eight, Can that be true? Let’s see. three unsuccessful runs. Two successful runs followed by filing and then recommending that my challenger be elected and then a 2006 race to stop the Red Plan…Yup. This would be eight. Let me start that sentence again without the exercise in counting.

I’m not sure that there is any profit for me facing a possible eighth campaign for the school board in explaining the circumstances for my getting that shot of penicillin back at Mankato State’s student health center. Candor is just another anvil. But knowing there are stupid kids at the intersection might slow you down. That’s what I was thinking at the beginning of the HIV outbreak in the early 80′s when I was substitute teaching and got paranoid about how little our kids knew about its lethality. I was quite gratified ten years later to learn that one of my improvised lessons on the subject had made an impression on at least one student.

I was at my daughter’s school organizing the Chester Park Carnival as usual. Someone had corralled a bunch of UMD women basketball players to help out and one of them told me she remembered my substituting in her class as Washington Junior High. I was surprised and asked how she could possibly remember my one off appearance and she told me it was because of my illustration about STDs. I introduced it by explaining that HIV was a death sentence which was true back then. Then I drew to figures, an x and an o maybe, on the chalk board and explained that if a boy and a girl had sex and both were virgins they could not share an STD. I then put one more x or o on the board and explained that if that new figure had an std and had sex with either of the other two figures before they had met then all three could get the STD. By the time I was over I had twenty or thirty figures up on the black board I had assigned random numbers of sex partners that each of the figures had had usually one or two at most. Then I put another figure up and said that this one had had 100 partners which got a huge laugh out of the class. That one was a prostitute I explained and I added that her 100 partners had had a thousand partners between them.

The point I was making was the simple one that when you have sex with one person you are having sex, or at least joining the pool, of everyone that they had sex with. Have sex with the wrong persons who had only been with one person it could mean being connected to a hundred or a thousand or more people. I said that in the day and age of death dealing pustule causing HIV that was a big gamble. Apparently it had been a reasonably effective lecture with one student in the class……at least in terms of making a point.

This, of course, is a digression. I probably hauled it out to cloak what I am about to disclose with aura of its being honest and necessary reporting. It probably isn’t. It’s probably just another anvil.

The woman who had put me in contact with her rather extensive chain of sex partners infected with venereal disease was one of my Mother’s best friends. I’d like to write more but its 4:12 Eastern Standard and I should try to catch some ZZZZ’s before daylight. I may save the rest for a memoir. I probably will. If there is anything surprising about the anvil I’ve just tossed out I’d suggest it is this: Things are only unsurprising when you are unprepared for them. Just as you were unprepared for my confession Duluth was unprepared for its Music Man Keith Dixon. I’m just an asshole for being honest about it. Its just tooo bad I couldn’t have given that HIV lecture to Duluth before Johnson Controls got together with Keith. We’ve had to learn the hard way how much pretty buildings and tarted up prostitutes have in common.

My life as an anvil salesman – Pt 2

Friday, January 18th, 2013

I’ve always liked the politicians I call boring old white guys when I thought they were sensible and honest politicians. They didn’t have to be anvil salesmen just decent. Jerry Ford, Dwight Eisenhower even Herbert Hoover the man who was so unlucky as to get elected in 1928, and even Barack Obama (who’s half white).

I think FDR was one of the most important presidents but I’ve always found his mercurial properties a bit off putting. Lyndon Johnson was just important but for crying out loud he was one hell of an SOB. Even Teddy Roosevelt was too flamboyant for my taste.

Lincoln, of course, is my all time favorite president but his times prevented him from being merely a boring old white guy. He wanted to be sensible, tried desperately to be sensible but as Bobby Dylan said, The times was a changing and he never got the chance to be boring and sensible. All he got was sensible and his sensible was one hell of a big anvil – tear the country apart to keep it together and end slavery – if need be.

Ah but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I’ve liked the same sort of politicians on the local level – boring old white guys. I tried very hard to be one. But there is one thing that grates on me about too many boring old white guys. They have a terrible penchant for needing to fit in. What bother’s me about this is that fitting in often requires turning one’s back on the truth or if not turning one’s back to it ignoring it. I can’t do that easily.

Given the chance to avoid an argument I’ll not slap people with the opinions I have that I know will offend them. About half of the American public is a little bent out of shape over the subject of abortion for instance. Anyone who has read my blog knows this. Anyone who read my old Reader columns knows this. All one has to do is go to the right hand column of this blog and click the abortion link and every post of mine on the subject will present themselves. Still, if I suspect someone is opposed to all abortions I have no desire to tell them I think they are wrong. Its only when they make their opinions public that I’m likely to disagree with them.

When the Red Plan first emerged, even before it had a color I was suspicious about it but I had stepped off the School Board a few years earlier and felt no compulsion to stick my nose into the planning. The most I’d done was to call my old friend Tim Grover, who was back on the Board, when I read the remarkable claim that the District was thinking about implementing a major construction program without putting it up for a vote. He told me that the District thought the law would permit them to do this. I was unconvinced that this could be true but that’s all I did about the question for the next three or four months.

By this time I had also retired from my four year stint as a columnist for the Reader Weekly but my old publisher gave me a call one day and asked me to write about this school building plan. I tried to demure but he laid a guilt trip on me. Harry, he told me, you served on the School Board. You have some knowledge about this important subject. You have no right to keep your thoughts private. You owe it to the public to let them know what you think.

I haven’t put this in quotes because I don’t know the exact words of our conversation but this essentially how it transpired that I wrote my first opinion piece on the Red Plan. One thing led to another and I was eventually one of the leading voices demanding a vote on the plan. That meant three years of fight and, once the fight was lost. three years of interminable “I told you so” from me mostly in the blog but also with a few letters to the editor.

I know that I’m unpopular with a lot of people in Duluth. That’s not very helpful for someone with political ambitions. Until the Red Plan folks might distrust me because I was a Republican because in the old days a lot of liberals tended to think Republicans were what they’ve become today – self righteous, paranoid, fiscal bomb throwers. That wasn’t true. Sure the George Wallace types had migrated into the Party but it was still the party of Eisenhower, Jerry Ford and even a pretty moderate Ronald Reagan who had signed pro abortion legislation, raised taxes and mostly played the skeptic where liberal pronouncements were concerned.

While I was fighting the Red Plan most of my detractors didn’t get in my face but I did get a few glimpses of what I stirred up by fighting both the Chamber of Commerce and Big Labor. Big Deal was one of best portholes to the musk oxen I was challenging. He had been in the legislature (I’d helped him put up lawnsigns) He’d helped me in return in some of my legislative races. He is a member of my church. He was a fiscal (or so I thought) conservative. He once started an anti tax organization in Duluth. He’d been a heavyweight in the Chamber of Commerce.

We have always gotten along well. During the Red Plan Fight, however, I caught two unplanned glimpses of what I faced in the larger community from Big D.

On the first occasion I happened to be following D down to our church’s basement after the service. D didn’t know I was behind him and began speaking rather vociferously about how folks didn’t realize how important the Red Plan was because they were in a delusional sticker shock about its cost, one he obviously thought was merited. He’d never told me this to my face and I held back so that he would not realize I’d over heard him saying that my anti-Red Plan point of view was stupid.

Disagreeing with me was one thing. Holding me in contempt was quite another and I found out just how far down I’d sunk in his opinion the following year with the Red Plan still a hot topic in town. I had to call D up for some reason, church, politics, I can’t recall at the moment although its quite likely I was looking for donations to a fund some anti-Red Plan activity.

He was on the phone with someone else when he picked up my call and told me he had to put me on hold to continue his previous conversation. Remember call waiting? I’m glad its a thing of the past. Almost immediately he was back on the phone to me and explained that he’d just gotten a call from some “asshole” he had to deal with. When I began speaking he suddenly realized his other party had hung up and hurriedly attempted to explain away his comment. I played along as though I had no idea he was referring to me. Anvils and assholes. As Meredith Wilson knew they had a lot in common.

Those who forget the past…

Thursday, January 17th, 2013

…of the Red Plan are condemned to attend meetings to fix it.

I got a stream of conscience email today from someone reacting to a letter in the DNT glorifying the results of the Red Plan. As I’m away on a short vacation to show my grandsons some alligators I had to jump online to read it. It was well written by someone who home schooled her four children all during the years that the Red Plan was being shoved down the throats of Duluth voters with the fraudulent claim that compromises were being made to make folks happier even as the plan kept getting more bloated and expensive to the tune of an additional 50 million dollars.

It is a well written letter. If there had been no history preceding it it could be persuasive. I suppose if anyone were to be persuasive an employee of the Trib ought to be that person. However, it begins with the honest, cringe worthy truth that the new superintendent is begging people to attend his meetings. Why golly, hundreds of cookies were laid out for a paltry 11 attendees at one meeting. But no one’s coming. DULUTH! These are your schools. These are your children. This is your future. Why aren’t you coming in answer to the Superintendent’s pleas? I think I can explain:

Many of us spent four years attending District meetings trying to get someone to pay attention to our concerns only to be treated as some sort of cancerous malignancy. Now that the decisions have led to irreparable harm, a student exodous, inflating taxes (despite previous promises that this would not happen), grossly swollen classrooms, violence from a shrunken staff, the leprous citizens are being invited back to help solve the problems. I’m not surprised that cookies are not enough of an enticement.

The letter could just as well have asked black Americans to forget slavery or the subsequent denial of their rights of citizenship for many generations or ask Native Americans to forget their being cheated out of their homelands or the South to forget Sherman’s march to the Sea or Jews the Holocaust. Some events take more than a simple turning of the page to forget even when free cookies are provided.

The building of the Red Plan is not equivalent to any of the dire historical precedents I’ve listed. But the bitter taste it left in many people’s mouths will require time to be forgotten.

Why the School Board doesn’t see the Red Man behind the curtain

Tuesday, January 15th, 2013

A letter-to-the-editor from an ex school board member that explains why the current school Board doesn’t have a clue:

Reader’s view: School district’s meeting lacked accurate information
A handout I received at the Dec. 18 Duluth School Board meeting, as well as a presentation graph and a key point made by the district’s business services director Bill Hanson on levy history, seemed to contain inaccuracies.
By: Richard Paulson, Duluth News Tribune
A handout I received at the Dec. 18 Duluth School Board meeting, as well as a presentation graph and a key point made by the district’s business services director Bill Hanson on levy history, seemed to contain inaccuracies.

The levy history graph indicated a levy of $29 million for 1997; however, the district’s summary of levy history shows $25.6 million. Under the summary of key points in the handout, the district stated our recommended levy continues to be below the “Pay 1997” levy.

Board member Art Johnston mentioned these discrepancies with Hanson, who stated he was unaware of the different levy figure for 1997. Lacking any further discussion on these discrepancies, the board passed resolution B-12-12-3060-Certified Tax Levy 2012 payable 2013 for $28.9 million. The vote was six to one and the result is expected to be an 11.9 percent increase in the district’s share of local property tax bills. The $28.9 million levy represents the largest in district history.

Further review of the district’s summary of levy history since 1997 indicates the lowest levy in 2002 of $8.1 million and the highest levy in 2012 of $28.9 million, an increase of 257 percent. I am unaware of any other districts in Minnesota with such an increase over the past 10 years.

Richard Paulson

Duluth

The writer is a former School Board member.

Pay no attention to the Red Man behind the curtain

Tuesday, January 15th, 2013

From today’s DNT:

Some teachers and principals reported class sizes this school year in the upper 40s in middle and high school classes and
mid-30s in elementary school classes. Class sizes were the largest they had ever been in Duluth, longtime teachers said.

and this:

Board members expressed frustration at the reappearance of many options.

“We would make a huge mistake by getting rid of elementary specialists,” said Judy Seliga Punyko. “That’s the one thing that every other district has around us.”

On the School Board’s long list of possible ugly cuts is the all-day kindergarten that the District should never have implemented because it didn’t have the money. Luckily (potentially) for the District, the state legislature will consider funding all-day Kindergarten statewide this year.

Lousy sales pitch

Friday, January 4th, 2013

Today Superintendent Gronsethweighed in with what he must have thought was a good sales pitch to follow up the recently approved 12% increase in property taxes for the Duluth Schools with a successful property increase at a referendum next November. Here’s how I’d paraphrase his case:

I talk to a few critics who complain that we were unwilling to make compromises in forcing the Red Plan down everyone’s throat which, for your information, have finally given us wonderful, safe schools that are saving us oodles of money. But we’re broke now so these complaints won’t help us raise more money to fix problems that in no way are related to the Red Plan.

Who without fanfare or celebration x’s 2

Thursday, January 3rd, 2013

My wife noticed a new free magazine the other day, The Duluth Quarterly” and squinted at it hard before turning up her nose at it. Not me. I picked it up and brought it home.

Its a thin little publication (found here) with even thinner stories having to do with city staff and projects. Its paid for by ads and put out four times a year by the publishers of the Lake Superior Magazine. Mayor Ness, who gets to pen a message at the beginning of the Winter issue and perhaps future ones, sums up the magazines mission:

“While the media puts focus on the hot button issues of the day and the actions of elected officials, it is our city employees who, without fanfare or celebration, work every day to make Duluth a better place to live and work. It is our city employees who, without fanfare or celebration, work every day to make Duluth a better place to live and work.(my italics)”

I was quite interested in the first story about the future of the Duluth Steam Plant. It has been the subject of some controversy which I was always happy to point out when Johnson Controls conned the City into paying them to improve the plant only to have the city take them to court for unfulfilled promises. The story mentions a new company, Ever-Green Energy, that will continue Johnson Controls work. We are assured good things will happen probably with little fanfare.

I was disappointed by the brief, nonexistant, “history” that was given (by my quick count) 57 words. Apparently the plant was successfully run by the “Duluth Steam Cooperative for many years.” Fini.

When I was on the School Board I had the facilities manager Kerry Leider give me a grand tour of Old Central which included the basement and we spent a lot of time looking at the pipes in the basement that brought the Steam Plant’s heat to the school. The downtown has been heated by the plant for decades. The history deserved more highlighting.

The story assures the reader that the new managers offer Duluth a “win win” and concludes by saying “That’s change we can all welcome.”
There are similar stories about the new transportation hub and the City’s parks post June flooding.

A brief google search led me to Perfect Duluth Day and Paul Lundgren’s 2010 announcement, based on a City press release, that the first issue would be made available on December tenth (my birthday).

The magazine seems like harmless if not very useful puffery for the City of Duluth. That its been out there for two years and I’ve failed to notice it says something. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d even picked up previous issues without giving them much thought. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d even picked up previous issues without giving them much thought.

“Proprietory Data” means never having to tell the truth

Monday, November 12th, 2012

JCI has used this phrase to cloak all its work with public entities despite long standing requirements by the State of Minnesota to act in a transparent way with public money. This stonewalling helped prevent citizens in Duluth from finding out how Johnson Controls managed to bamboozle the Duluth School Board into accepting a breathtakingly vast scheme to rebuild all its schools so that operating moneys would no longer be squandered on facility maintenence. The result? Five million bucks of operating money now go annually to pay off the JCI built school bonds and our high school classrooms typically have an obscene 40 kids in them. This is just the opposite of what JCI promised the community.

The plucky little Timberjay Newspaper of Orr, Minnesota, has been doggedly trying to ferret out the public data from JCI for a similar bamboozelment based on preposterous claims for energy and tax savings to rebuild the St. Louis County Schools. The paper recently won a unanimous Appeals Court decision giving them access to JCI’s tightly controlled data. Not surprisingly JCI has appealed the decision to the State Supreme Court.

I think the Timberjay should ask the Supreme Court to order JCI not to tamper with any of this data to make sure that it does not conveniently disappear before JCI loses again.

JCI petitions Supreme Court for review of Timberjay case

TEXT: REGIONAL—Attorneys for Johnson Controls, Inc. and Architectural Resources have petitioned the state’s Supreme Court to hear an appeal of last month’s decision by the Court of Appeals in a public information case brought by the Timberjay.
The decision to seek review was no surprise. JCI attorney David Lillehaug had vowed from the beginning to fight the Timberjay’s information request to the state’s highest court. Unlike the Court of Appeals, however, the Supreme Court has discretion over which cases to hear, and in civil matters the court only grants about ten percent of review petitions that come before it.
But Timberjay attorney Mark Anfinson said the high profile nature of the case— which has already received extensive statewide publicity— makes it more likely that the court would agree to hear it. “The complicating factor for us is that this case is probably seen as more important than most,” he said.
JCI’s petition comes in the wake of an appellate ruling last month that found that the company was performing a governmental function when it contracted with the St. Louis County School District for the construction and renovation of several schools. Under state law, that means that documents in the company’s possession, related to that project, are subject to public request, as if JCI were a public entity.
The Timberjay, back in March 2011, had requested to inspect the architectural subcontract between JCI and Architectural Resources, the company that JCI hired to provide design work and drawings for the school projects. JCI denied the request, beginning a legal process that has now taken more than 18 months.
The latest move by JCI means further delay. The Timberjay now has 20 days to file a response to the petition, and the court typically indicates whether or not it will hear the case within 30-40 days. If the court does take the case, it could be a year or more before a decision might be issued.
“We believe this has been JCI’s game plan all along,” said Timberjay General Manager Jodi Summit. “They know they can’t win this in the end, but they have apparently decided to use the legal process to avoid having to comply with the law for as long as possible.”
Meanwhile, the Timberjay recently filed a second information request with JCI, seeking energy savings calculations for the school projects. The company had claimed in documents submitted to the Minnesota Department of Education that the work it was proposing would save the school district $380,000 a year in utility costs.
But a review of utility bills by the Timberjay found that utility costs at the new schools are substantially higher than in the past.

And a friend sent me this story about JCI’s new schools

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

Also from the Timberjay and sent to me by a friend. Bless them for risking JCI’s threat of a “slapp suit” and taking JCI to the Minnesota Supreme Court and winning!

10/11/12
Contractor to board: “You were ripped off by Johnson Controls”

REGIONAL – Playing fields at the South Ridge School need more work to be suitable and Johnson Controls Inc., which oversaw the project, should be held accountable, Gerald Wick told the St. Louis County School Board at its meeting on Tuesday.

“You were ripped off by Johnson Controls,” said Wick, who said he contacted JCI’s Randy Anderson about the fields and received no satisfactory answers for their condition.

According to Wick, the fields are littered with small rocks and the soil is like gravel, making it difficult for grass to sprout and grow.

Wick, a Toivola-based contractor, is bringing loads of black dirt to the ball fields in an effort to improve them, but said the $1,800 that the district has allocated for the project won’t provide enough black dirt to significantly improve the fields.

Playing fields for football and baseball as well as the school’s playground are suffering from a lack of adequate topsoil, according to Wick, who has donated some loads of black dirt in hopes of fixing the problem. The football field is being used this season and ball fields were used last year, but Wick said the students deserve better.

He told the Timberjay in a phone interview on Wednesday that he plans to pursue efforts to hold JCI accountable and require the company to pay for the necessary work to upgrade the fields.

“It’s absolutely pathetic what they did at South Ridge,” Wick said. “I want to get a hold of their financial records and see what they spent on the fields.”

Wick said the school district’s attempt to repair the fields isn’t sufficient. The couple of hundred yards of dirt he’s dumped on the fields amount to a “dusting,” he said. “They need a couple of inches at minimum to do any good.”

Funds for properly rehabilitating the fields shouldn’t come out of the district’s coffers, Wick said. It was JCI’s responsibility to ensure the fields were suitable and the company should be held accountable, he said. He plans to draft a letter to JCI and is seeking public support to pressure the company into meeting its obligation.

He initially brought his concerns to JCI’s Anderson. In their phone conversation, Wick said Anderson tried to blame the lack of grass on the district’s failure to water the fields. But Wick said the soil was too gravelly to support the growth of grass. Wick said when he pressed Anderson on the issue, Anderson hung up the phone. That’s why he brought the matter to the school board during its open forum portion on Tuesday, he said.

“I’m so disgusted at what they did,” said Wick. “I’m going to follow up and get on JCI to take care of this.”
In other related news, Superintendent Teresa Strong acknowledged water problems at South Ridge and Cherry schools, but said the water was safe for drinking at both locations. To ensure that water remains suitable for drinking, Strong said the district would test it weekly.

New JCI schools have fecal bacteria in their drinking water

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

Thought you’d like to know. Sorry the full story is pay walled. The headline tells me all I need to know. I suspect JCI is balking at paying for a fix.

Old JCI news at the Timberjay

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

Enjoy

With JCI it always gets worse

Saturday, October 27th, 2012

I often guess at old figures I haven’t reviewed recently. That St. Louis County School project cost more than I recalled and the costs, thanks to JCI, are rising rapidly. They don’t have nearly as many people to tap as the Duluth School District does to fix JCI’s errors and omissions. I got this email tonight outlining some of the impending costs for that botched JCI project. At least the Timberjay is poised to ferret some small part of the truth out of Milwaukee thanks to the unanimous decision of the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Handsome Harry: glad you got the article from the Timberjay. The original bond was for $78.8 million, cost over-runs have totaled over $5 million to date and still growing, the IRRRB swallowed hard to the DFL and gave $275,000 to complete the Cook new school, never mind that not one ounce of iron ore was ever mined in Cook. And it’s not going to stop there. The school board, under the guidance of JCI, are going to the DFL controlled Commissioner of Education (read teacher’s union) for even more money to be tacked on our real estate statements all under the guise of health and safety. I’ll let you know, but this water contamination issue is going to cost mega bucks, JCI has already said they don’t have to pay. And there is more. We have two retired civil engineers who have worked up the numbers on the waste water treatment system JCI installed. The numbers don’t work. If we get a 6″ downpour, the system can’t handle that volume and has no choice but to run-off into Flint Creek, tributary to the Littlefork River, already deemed impaired. And WE all told them this before it happened.

PS on the swimming pools

Saturday, October 27th, 2012

I suspect that the JCI/Red Plan schools are saving no more energy than the JCI schools built for the St. Louis County School system. Add to that disappointment some rumors to the effect that some of our new school classrooms are every bit as uncomfortable as they ever were being hot one moment and then cold the next. This would make them lousy environment to study in especially if they are as overcrowded as reported. Who can blame the old members of the Duluth School Board for not wanting to know how this all came to pass?

When I first moved to Minnesota a new kid told me that the pool at Mankato High School was unheated in the winter and kids had to jump through ice on top to swim. I was worried he might be telling the truth. I used to be a high school swimming coach and all I can say is that it doesn’t sound all that far fetched here in Duluth.

About those swimming pools – Pt. 2

Saturday, October 27th, 2012

As the last post pointed out Duluth’s mega school plan was never voted on in a referendum which made it as unique in Minnesota history as its vast scope at $450 million.

Superintendent Dixon and JCI cunningly crafted a finance package which made use of four different funding sources that carefully exempted them from having to face the voters. They expressly avoided the most common legislative authority for such funding that gave them the chance to pay for the Red Plan but which gave voters a chance to petition for a “reverse referendum” to reverse the building if enough no votes were cast. The new legislation they relied on, authored by Rep. Mike Jaros, permitted them to ignore a referendum if it could be justified based on a need to racially integrate the Duluth Schools. Mike raised hell about this use because, ironically, the consequences of the Red Plan would almost certainly concentrate the minority population. Sadly Mike’s DFL colleagues, encouraged by the local unions who wanted public construction, took JCI’s and the School Board’s side as did Governor Tim Pawlenty.

I’ve never attempted to explain once consequence of the Red Plan’s implementation that I’ve always found very intriguing and which Dr. Dixon must have savored. It was the tremendous freedom to alter the Red Plan that he enjoyed because he was not limited by the wording of a referendum which would have listed the projects and the total cost which could not have easily been deviated from had it been basis on which the building proceeded.

Old timers might recall that JCI offered three patriotic plans for consideration in 2006 a Red Plan, a White plan and a Blue plan. The Red Plan was the least expensive at $257 million. When it was chosen its more limited cost was trumpeted as one of the reasons. And yet today the plan is coming in at $315 million.

It didn’t take long for some of the expensive items from the white and the blue plans to find their way into the Red Plan. Some extravagances never contemplated in the Red Plan got added like the new stadium at Ordean/East high school. After swimming enthusiast Judy Seliga-Punyko defeated me in our 2008 campaign two $8 million dollar swimming pools were added to the Red Plan. The result, as folks at Congdon Elementary can attest to is that some of the later school projects got unexpectedly trimmed as the Red Plan began running into the Red.

Dr. Dixon was able for three years to reward his friends with all sorts of new Red, White and Blue goodies although he did have to go to the State once to ask that he be allowed to spend more money boosting the cost to $315 million.

How did we pay for all this? What couldn’t be taxed was instead bled from the school program to the tune of 5 million annually. That’s because promised staffing and energy savings never materialized requiring that we trim operational costs by 5 million annually. That means classrooms in the high schools of nearly 50 students. Its yet one more cost of the Red Plan despite the lies of our School Administrators who are still defending Keith Dixon.

About those swimming pools – Pt. 1

Saturday, October 27th, 2012

Part of the justification for building the Red Plan was that the District would save a great deal on energy costs. JCI estimated it would amount to about 2.5 million dollars annually. (Correction – in a recent post I wrote the total savings for the plan would be six million annually. I should have written $5 million)

I don’t know where these “energy savings” were supposed to come from. Long before JCI entered the picture and when I was on the School Board there was a lot of talk about our schools having to maintain far too much building space for the shrinking number of students we were education. It was suggested that we had something like 25% more space than was required. It was space that had to be heated in the winter so I suppose this was the original source of the JCI energy savings. You have to wonder however, how triming the square footage of our District’s buildings would yeild $2.5 million in annual savings. Transportation was never even figured into the energy needs and the fact that fewer buildings would require longer bussing commutes by more children should have been analyzed. That may be why oil and gas costs weren’t considered. It would have interfered with the sales pitch.

Ironically, the current Red Plan buildings may take up nearly as much space as the buildings they replaced. That was Art Johnston’s contention. If so they house an even smaller student population than before the Red Plan. Of course, the current school board has made no inquiries that I know of concerning these costs or, if they have, the Duluth News Tribune has failed to highlight such discussions.

That leads me to the timely story of the Timberjay which was sent me this morning by a couple different friends. As I’ve pointed out before the Timberjay has done what our exalted DNT has failed to do – dug deeply into JCI’s energy promises to the St. Louis County School Board. After a prolonged legal fight, ignoring threats by JCI to sue the hell out of the Timberjay, the State Supreme Court acknowledged what I’ve contended for five years – that JCI’s work with a government entity makes its paperwork public.

Soon, thanks to a real journalist, the rural residents of St. Louis County may get a peek at a fraudulent sales pitch on energy savings by JCI which induced that community to vote (narrowly) for a $70 million dollar building spree.

The pathetic voters of Duluth’s school district by comparison will continue to live in ignorance because my court challenge was squashed by JCI and we don’t have much in the way of investigative journalism in Duluth. Perhaps owing to Let Duluth Vote’s fight the City of Duluth exposed another fraudulent energy savings scam by JCI and collected a cool million bucks on the old steam plant.

Maybe if we could get a school board to uncover the original JCI energy calculations our school district could get a crack at some compensation too.

Anyway, here’s the story from St. Louis County thanks to the work of a real news paper:

10/24/12
Timberjay makes new information request to JCI

REGIONAL—The Timberjay has filed a new public information request to Johnson Controls, Inc., seeking documentation in support of the company’s projections of energy savings for the South Ridge and North Woods schools.
The company had indicated in documents provided to the Minnesota Department of Education that it’s proposed restructuring plan for the St. Louis County School District would slice $380,000 annually from the district’s utility costs. But a Timberjay analysis of utility bills for the first year of operation of the new South Ridge School found that the bills exceeded those from the AlBrook and Cotton schools combined, by nearly 50 percent. The AlBrook and Cotton schools were closed as part of the restructuring and students were consolidated into the new South Ridge School.
“It’s pretty clear that the district isn’t going to see the utility savings that JCI promised,” said Marshall Helmberger, who submitted the latest information request for the Timberjay. “Given that the new North Woods School is an identical design, we expect it will be at least as costly to operate as South Ridge has proven to be.” Helmberger said he’s been assured by professional engineers that JCI would have developed detailed energy calculations in order to make projections of utility savings. “We want to see the original calculations that JCI or its subcontractors used in making these claims,” said Helmberger. “We had hoped the school board would request this information when the high operating costs became known, but this board seems unwilling to seek any accountability for the problems associated with this project,” said Helmberger.
The information request was initially made to the St. Louis County School District, but school officials indicated that the district does not have the information and that the newspaper would need to request it from JCI.
While JCI, as a private company, is normally not subject to the state’s public information laws, when it contracts with public agencies, such as the school district, to perform a governmental function, information related to its contract is public. That legal principle was upheld earlier this month in a decision by the Minnesota Court of Appeals, which ruled that JCI must provide the Timberjay with a copy of an architectural subcontract that JCI had entered into as part of the school district project. JCI has been refusing to comply with that request since March of 2011. The company has until Nov. 8 to file an appeal in the case to the Minnesota Supreme Court.
As for the paper’s latest information request, JCI attorney David Lillehaug said he is reviewing the request with company officials and should have a response soon.

About our new swimming pools

Friday, October 26th, 2012

I have to go do some repair work from my own personal construction disaster. I’ll confess the Duluth School Board aren’t the only folks who’ve managed to blunder into a “too good to be true” sale’s pitch.

So keep your eyes on this space. I posted it titled but unstarted to remind me to write it later.

Putting the hood in neighbor

Friday, October 26th, 2012

Things don’t sound good at Denfeld:

Something is different at Denfeld High School this year — and students are scared. That was the sentiment from parents Thursday night as they met with the school’s administration to discuss fights involving students on and off school grounds.

I’ve been hearing rumors from multiple sources that its not just students who are afraid at Denfeld but some teachers. I’ve also heard that in some classes the disruptions of last year are less troublesome. These are just rumors, of course and I’ve not been in the new Denfeld to see for myself. I decided after reading this story that the word is getting out so I decided to add my two cents and that’s about all my opinion is worth.

I like principal Sconiers and imagine that her no nonsense attitude is helping keep Denfeld on a relative even keel but even she has had to seek help from parents to deal with the unintended consequence of the Red Plan’s poor execution. She once lectured me about my opposition to the Red Plan. She’s sort of a Mitt Romney get on the buss Republican. Think Congressman Allen West or Limbaugh blasted Michael Steele.

50 kids in a class but its not cuz of the Red Plan

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012

Bullshit!

I’m embarrassed for those who are still defending Keith Dixon. It is only by admitting the truth that these folks can begin to win back the voter’s trust.

You can expect the union, Education Minnesota, to start using Duluth as the poster boy for the state’s stinginess. That’s a lie. The state hasn’t helped any school district but Duluth’s massive over crowding is all of its own doing when it gambled that six million annual operating dollars could be transferred to pay off Red Plan bank loans and recovered through annual energy and staff savings. Neither materialized and then the District compounded its problems by giving the teachers too much in contract settlements necessitating further lay offs.

Hell, Even local union president, Frank Wanner, finally commented that the surprise purchase of two 8 million dollar swimming pools showed where the School Board’s priorities lay. (BTW: for once Frank and I are on the same page. Teachers not buildings are a higher priority but both trail the interests of those poor kids crammed in Red Plan classrooms that are far too small for them)

These folks are just daring me to run for the School Board again.

Tribute to the Timberjay

Thursday, October 18th, 2012

JON TEVLIN, Star Tribune

It has one of the coolest newspaper names around, the Timberjay. Its owners backed into journalism after careers in woodsy stuff and knitting. They live off the grid, in a solar-powered cabin in the woods, where they grow their own vegetables, harvest wild rice and shoot game for dinner.

But last week the little newspaper with offices near the edge of the world beat the corporate suits in court, a ruling that could mean the media, and thus the public, will have better access to contracts between the government and businesses that cater to it.
More transparency, more oversight for the public.

It started when Marshall Helmberger, publisher of the Timberjay Newspapers of Tower, Minn, began to notice troubling mistakes and added costs in a $78 million project to build and renovate St. Louis County Schools. As the project proceeded, Helmberger noticed code violations, change orders and simple billing miscues, such as failing to include the cost of rebuilding an exterior wall.

“This was like kindergarten stuff,” said Helmberger. “My God, are you kidding me?”

So Helmberger used the Minnesota Data Practices Act to request a copy of the subcontracting agreement between the builder, Johnson Controls of Milwaukee, and Duluth-based Architectural Resources Inc. Johnson refused, claiming the contract contained proprietary secrets.

Most small-town newspapers have neither the money nor the gumption to fight that fight. They are more often resigned to move along and report on the things expected of small-town papers — that Gladys Kravitz visited the Bundys last week and a good time was had by all.
But the Timberjay has a long history of investigative reporting. The newspaper, which covers the region around Tower and Ely, has won three prestigious Premack Awards, presented by the University of Minnesota for outstanding public affairs journalism.

So they sued. Last week, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled that government contractors are subject to state open records laws.

Under the guidance of Helmberger and his wife, Jodi Summit, the Timberjay has investigated such topics as the lack of dental care access for the poor, police treatment of a transgender person and foster care issues in St. Louis County.

Helmberger is the first to admit the small staff spends most of its time on traditional news, community events, profiles and meetings, but “the investigative stuff is what really gets my blood boiling.”

Helmberger, 51, and Summit moved to Tower in 1984, to a dream home in the woods. Helmberger was a naturalist and planted trees for the Forest Service while his wife did custom knitting. When a previous owner started the Timberjay in 1990, he offered Helmberger a chance to do reporting a few hours a week.

Helmberger found he had a natural curiosity about the world around him, and a knack for getting information. When the owner decided to move, Helmberger and Summit bought the paper. “It was a fluke,” he said.

The name Timberjay is another term for the Gray Jay, which is known to thrive in cold, remote places and have an innate curiosity. According to T.S. Roberts’ “The Birds of Minnesota,” the birds are “a welcome companion among the deserted and desolate surroundings of a northern forest in midwinter.”

So is the newspaper.

Today, Helmberger and Summit do reporting as well as sell ads and manage the business. They often cover issues ignored by small-town papers. Most of the investigative stories involve government, rather than local businesses, but the newspaper is more likely to offer equal space to environmental activists than their competitors, who tend to favor such industries as mining.

“I really don’t care if U.S. Steel gets mad at me,” said Helmberger.

Helmberger and Summit also feel a need to engage in the communities their paper serves. When the school district decided to close the Tower high school and force students to take 26-mile bus rides, Helmberger and his wife led an effort to start a charter school, which will open in September.

Meanwhile, Helmberger will wait to see if the contractors petition the state Supreme Court to hear the case, or fork over the documents. He has no idea whether those documents will reveal any funny business, but the more the company fights it, the more suspicious he is.

“They were treating our board like a bunch of country bumpkins,” said Helmberger. “So I said, ‘OK, show me the contract.’”

Congratulations Timberjay

Wednesday, October 10th, 2012

This story is already all but lost on the DNT website. Ironically it celebrates local journalism. I just wish those of us who fought for public data on the fraud called the Red Plan could have prevailed as the Timberjay has.

I found the concluding paragraph, composed by a competent DNT reporter particlarly entertainging:

In a response to the News Tribune’s request for comment, Monica Zimmer, Johnson Control’s director of global public relations said in a statement: “We are currently reviewing the ruling made today by the Minnesota Court of Appeals and will be evaluating our options.”

So even now JCI is trying to figure out how to hide the bodies deep enough to prevent the stink from emerging. Its too late to mask the stench in Duluth.