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 maintenance. 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.
