Thursday, July 24, 2008

APS will turn down the heat.

Tax payers will be paying a lot more to heat schools this year. The cost of natural gas is climbing as fast or faster than the price of gasoline.

According to Zsombor Peter's article; LINK sub req
taxpayers can expect to spend $7.42M tax dollars heating
the APS this year.

John Dufay, APS' Maintenance and Operations Director,
has a plan to save energy in the district. His plan includes;

  • turning down the heat,
  • isolating and heating only the necessary parts of schools,
  • preventing teachers from entering buildings at night,
  • using heat pumps instead of boilers, and
  • "possibly" using solar water heaters,
If you google "saving energy in school buildings"
these are the suggestions that you find. It is not rocket
science. In fact, you will find 348,000 hits,
most of which have been on the internet for years.

So why are they just now occurring to the senior leadership of the APS?

If they are going to help save a million dollars this year,
why weren't they used help save a million dollars
last year?

In particular, the Journal's Peter reports that John Dufay said;
"... the district will dial down the temperature in its
schools from an average of approximately 75 degrees
to 70 or 71 degrees.

... most people won't notice the difference."
But they would have noticed last year? ??

Why were schools being heated to 75 degrees last year
when a widely recognized and accepted temperature
of
72 degrees has been the standard for years?




Another of the questions that you will never be allowed to
ask in a town hall meeting;

or in any other venue where a candid, forthright, and
honest answer might be expected in response to a
legitimate question.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Around the Metro Area


Journal Staff Report
APS Didn't Violate Rights
A judge has ruled that the former head of the Albuquerque Public Schools police department was an at-will employee, and that his due process rights were not violated when APS let his contract expire last summer.
The parties to the lawsuit brought against APS by Gil Lovato met Wednesday, after U.S. District Court Judge William "Chip" Johnson threw out the due process charge earlier this month, said Lovato's attorney Sam Bregman. Other charges in the suit still stand.
Lovato was on paid leave and being investigated for the first six months of 2007 due to allegations of favoritism, misuse of police property and mishandling of money collected as evidence.
Lovato contends he lost his job because he complained to APS administrators about their decision to hire a private investigator to look into allegations against certain employees.
Bregman said more motions will be filed and that he hopes to get the case before a jury.

Anonymous said...

The heaters & air conditioners are strange in these schools.
My daughters class was an ice box, while the one across the hall was hot.
When I said something to the office, a teacher ripped into me that she would rather they leave it alone, because it CAN get worse.
So they might do better to just scrap the whole system and use floor heaters.