have an engineer miles away from the building, would be dangerous to students and staff. The City’s appeals
board granted Schrupp’s variance anyway.
Schrupp’s management of the boilers, has not represented the best practices at all. Other school districts enjoy
generally accepted principles of boiler operations. Acting on behalf of the Governor, Schrupp seeks to reduce
costs at the expense of the lives of black and brown children. This is not acceptable. Schools and boiler
operators should be provided all of the tools to make timely and necessary repairs and adjustments.
JUSTIFICATIONS
The a licensed stationary engineer witness states:
“The justification on a waiver of the 706 G Ordinance is that it will save the School District $8 million dollars by staffing
schools (through a contractor) with 1 engineer for 5 buildings. Boilers are considered an inherently dangerous piece of
equipment and DPS has done a terrible job of maintaining the systems. If the boiler engineers aren’t there, anything can
happen. The reason they started having stationary engineers is because of a boiler explosion in the 1800’s. There were
no operator and low water conditions. The boiler operators manually operate the boiler so that it is operating safely.
Make sure there is enough water and the flame is running properly. There was a school in 2013, with new
boilers 2010, water main break occurred, no water, the boilers would run out of water. The boiler shut off. The
other boiler should have shut down, but the safety device failed. The boiler was manually shut down. If it
continued to fire and then cold water came in, the boiler would have exploded.
There are two kinds of explosions:
1. Fuel explosion – Natural gas explosion tears up boiler
2. Steam explosion – Volume multiplies over 100,000 times shrapnel hot water steam fuel exploding.
The boilers would be in better shape, but DPS has not provided parts. Boiler operators are forced to scavenge
parts to make just one work. Do we find ways to keep it going and make it safe, yes, is it practical, no. Without
any boiler operators, then, accidents will happen. We are protecting the lives of children and neighborhoods
here. Even with repairs, and brand new boilers, you need a boiler operator; the law is there for a reason.
2011 contracted boiler operator to third party. Those parties have been made responsible for parts, but don’t
pay the contractors for the parts. The variance won’t work and here’s why:
- --- You can’t see the boiler water level.
----- You can’t guarantee how fast you can get there.
----- You can’t shut it down from a remote location.
----- If the low water cut off is monitored by the system. If the low water cut off mechanism doesn’t work on the
boiler, it won’t advise the monitoring system.
Experts ruled against variance. Appeals Board convinced David Bell to gut the ordinance. David Bell has no
background, he is an appointee of Mayors office. The DPS will not replace the boilers, but they mandated that if
t