{"id":7805,"date":"2012-10-30T21:53:42","date_gmt":"2012-10-31T02:53:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/?p=7805"},"modified":"2017-02-27T16:30:48","modified_gmt":"2017-02-27T21:30:48","slug":"and-a-friend-sent-me-this-story-about-jcis-new-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/?p=7805","title":{"rendered":"And a friend sent me this story about JCI’s new schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

10\/11\/12
\nContractor to board: \u201cYou were ripped off by Johnson Controls\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou were ripped off by Johnson Controls,\u201d said Wick, who said he contacted JCI\u2019s Randy Anderson about the fields and received no satisfactory answers for their condition. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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\u2019t provide enough black dirt to significantly improve the fields. <\/p>\n

Playing fields for football and baseball as well as the school\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s absolutely pathetic what they did at South Ridge,\u201d Wick said. \u201cI want to get a hold of their financial records and see what they spent on the fields.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wick said the school district\u2019s attempt to repair the fields isn\u2019t sufficient. The couple of hundred yards of dirt he\u2019s dumped on the fields amount to a \u201cdusting,\u201d he said. \u201cThey need a couple of inches at minimum to do any good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Funds for properly rehabilitating the fields shouldn\u2019t come out of the district\u2019s coffers, Wick said. It was JCI\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

He initially brought his concerns to JCI\u2019s Anderson. In their phone conversation, Wick said Anderson tried to blame the lack of grass on the district\u2019s 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\u2019s why he brought the matter to the school board during its open forum portion on Tuesday, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so disgusted at what they did,\u201d said Wick. \u201cI\u2019m going to follow up and get on JCI to take care of this.\u201d
\nIn 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. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jci"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7805"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20132,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7805\/revisions\/20132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}