Action News Jax Investigates: 2,000+ repair requests made by DCPS during first week of school

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The City of Jacksonville is facing two lawsuits over the half-cent sales tax to help fund new construction and upkeep.

A Duval County teacher's tweet sparked a passionate response on both sides of the half cent sales tax issue.

• Action News Jax has also requested all repair requests made to DCPS so far this school year.
• One lawsuit is from Duval County Public Schools system and the other is from a group of parents who believe the City Council is blocking the effort to get the half-cent sales tax on the ballot.
• There were more than 2,000 repair requests made in the first week of school (Aug. 12 through 16), according to documents from DCPS; click here and here to view the repair requests from the first week of school.
• The cost of construction and renovations to Duval County school totals about $1.08 billion.
• The Duval County School Board decided to seek legal counsel in July after the City Council voted down a push to get the half-cent sales tax on the November ballot.

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On Sunday night, Mayor Lenny Curry tweeted a poll, asking if people were watching the Emmys or football.

That's when a local teacher snapped back. He wanted to know if his classroom's air conditioning would be fixed in the morning.

Action News Jax investigator Courtney Cole spoke to Mayor Curry who says he's ready to work on getting repairs to Duval County Public Schools.

The tweet you see at the top, is one that got one teacher fired up on Sunday night. It's from Mayor Curry.

The mayor tweeted: "It's Sunday night and the season is ball. It's also the Emmy awards. Who ya got?"
It's safe to say Chris Guerrieri didn't like either of those two choices.

The teacher at Palm Avenue Exception Student Center tweeted this response back to Mayor Curry: "I am working on lesson plans wondering if the AC in my class is going to work tomorrow. My profile pic is a picture of it by the way."

That's when Mayor Curry responded and told him to send him a direct message with his school and classroom ... so he can get the problem fixed.

On Monday, Cole caught up with Mayor Curry to learn if he's working with the teacher to get this problem fixed.

Cole: "Are you guys working to get this fixed?"
Mayor Curry: "I have not heard anything back based on that direct tweet."

If the half-cent sales tax was put on a ballot, approved by voters, and put into play, Duval County Public Schools told Cole that Palm Avenue would receive $2.48 million to address age-related maintenance.

Mayor Curry told Action News Jax he has not heard of instances where air conditioners are not being fixed, but if they're not -- he says he simply wants to help.
 
Courtney Cole: "What do you say to the people who say -- 'look that's a shame, why did this person have to tweet him to get a response.' What do you say to those people?"
Mayor Curry: (Pauses) "They can e-mail me. They can call my office, and, you know, I act. When I see there's a need, I act and try to solve the problem."

Some also speculated the mayor was throwing some shade toward the school district when he said this in one of his tweets: "If management can't fix basic needs like air conditioning, we will."

So Cole asked him what he meant by that:

Mayor Curry: "Tweets can be misunderstood. My point was, if you've got air conditioning units that are not working, and they're not being fixed, and you've got a request in ... that's a problem."

When Cole asked Mayor Curry how many teachers he's heard from that need help so far, he said he's only received four e-mails.

Cole also requested the number of repair requests for all Duval County Public Schools during the first week.

This is what she found: There were 2,259 requests total the first week back to school. A total of 1,140 repair requests were completed, leaving 1,119 repairs left undone.

Cole asked the district for an updated list of repairs needed, but she's still waiting to hear back.
 
And when it comes to working on getting a date down to put the half-cent sales tax on the ballot, Curry says he's waiting to hear from the school board, too.

Mayor Curry: "I stand ready. It's very, very simple. Collaborate with all constituents and stakeholders. Reach an agreement with equity for all public schools, which includes charter schools. You want to pass a $2B tax? Carve something out for public charter schools, get agreement on that."

Here's the response from Duval County Public Schools to Mayor Curry's tweets:

We appreciate the Mayor's personal interest in addressing the facilities and maintenance challenges at our schools.

While his tweets offering assistance are appreciated, we've offered a bold plan to comprehensively address our facility needs and to improve safety and security at every school. The most effective approach would be to allow voters to have their voices heard. The ballot box, not Twitter, is the best way to solve the problem of Jacksonville's outdated school facilities.

Until then, we have an innovative and hardworking maintenance team that has been through all the requisite background screening to work on school campuses. Our team has proven to be very skilled at putting maintenance band aids on outdated systems. The issue is that many of these systems are well past their useful life and should be fully replaced, not just repaired. That is why our School Board's proposal for a half-penny sales tax referendum is so important to the future of our schools.

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