Parapet problems identified in 2009; DPW commish says town could have moved faster
It had been well over a year after concerns about the stability of the Bethlehem Town Hall parapet had been raised when it came crashing down earlier this week, crushing four cars parked underneath the building’s facade.
It was also about 10 months after the funding to repair the parapet, which is original to the 1920s-era building, was first put to the Town Board. As the dust settles, town officials have been left to explain how process and planning difficulties conspired to push the work back past the summer building season.
Board considered parapet in April
In April of 2010, the Town Board considered about $1.8 million in bonding resolutions, included amongst them repairs to the parapet and the courthouse roof.
Records of that meeting and past Spotlight articles show members of the Town Board were in favor of repairing those items. But they show no action was taken at that meeting or the next one, when most of the rest of the bonding packages were approved.
Instead, the next time the repairs came up was Aug. 11, when the board voted to contract with the firm of Barton and Loguidice for design work.
The bond resolution did not only include repair work, though. Packaged with it were upgrades to Town Hall amounting to about $365,000, the majority of which would cover expansions to the comptroller and human resources offices.
This touched off a heated debate on the Town Board. Members said the extra work was unnecessary and sprung on them by Supervisor Sam Messina, leading to a delay on the bonding vote.
Messina then and now characterized the expansions as necessary. Staffing changes left employees without places to work, he said.
`I personally tried to move this forward as quickly as I can with strong recommendations from staff,` he said. `Action steps got delayed a little. You have a month or two delay here and there, and pretty soon you’re up to six months.`
Councilman Kyle Kotary said he feels the extra work neutered the board’s ability to move expeditiously on repairs.
`It’s unfortunate that Supervisor Messina originally put forth a bond proposal that included a bunch of unnecessary spending on office furniture and office expansions with necessary repairs to the structure of the courthouse and Town Hall,` Kotary said.
Between April and the August 2010 approval, town staff continued to study the Town Hall project, said Department of Public Works Deputy Commissioner Erik Deyoe.
`We spent from April into August doing the preliminary design work on the inside, doing some hazardous material surveys on the roofing materials,` he said. `We were advancing those preliminary design efforts in the April to August timeframe.`
Under that schedule, an earlier approval probably wouldn’t have meant work would have been done before winter, when masonry work becomes difficult and expensive, Deyoe said.
Wall was targeted in 2009
Problems in the parapet were identified much earlier though, in 2009. The repair was made part of the 2010 capital plan, which was finalized later that year. So there was about half of a year between the discovery and the initial proposal for bonding.
Department of Public Works Commissioner Josh Cansler said he would have preferred to see the repairs pushed on a different path from other Town Hall work.
`I would rather it had gone through separately, and I think that was our initial goal,` he said. `I do remember trying to get it on a board meeting earlier than [April].`
Cansler went on to say if the parapet wall had been focused on independently in April, it’s possible a repair could have been made before the winter. Connected to other projects, though, it languished.
`I remember standing up in that April meeting and saying, ‘At a minimum you have to repair that parapet.’ But no movement was made on that,` Cansler said.
Kotary said he recalls the Town Board giving town staff instruction to begin repair work at the April meeting. He said he was surprised to find the parapet had not been repaired.
`The Town Board was pretty clear in our direction and I’d like to know why it wasn’t fixed earlier,` he said.
`My view was that we were going to look at some incidental things…and then that we were going to move forward,` said Councilman Mark Hennessey. `I didn’t think we needed to wait for another agenda item to move forward on this.`
Town infrastructure in forefront
How the town spends its money has been a matter of considerable public debate in recent weeks. The town put in a bid in hopes of acquiring the Normanside Country Club’s land in February (the amount of the bid is unknown, but Bank of America started the bidding at $1.3 million).
Councilman Mark Jordan wondered why that resolution was struck in a matter of days while Town Hall repairs were stalled all summer.
`That was put forward into fast forward, warp speed…and it seems this safety concern was put on the back burner,` he said.
Jordan was the only member of the board who voted against putting a bid for the course in. Other board members considered the course to have been a potential revenue source.
That doesn’t mean the two issues are not related, said Hennessey. Had the town got involved with Normanside before the Bank of America put it up for auction, he argued, the town could have struck its own deal, perhaps for much less.
`You know about this issue, it sits there, it sits there, it sits there, and nothing gets done,` he said. `If we plan ahead for things like this, instead of letting them become an emergency, we’d be in a much better place.`
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Today, scaffolding stands at Town Hall, waiting for workers to begin the repair process. The collapsed area has been shielded from the elements, but a fix will have to wait until warmer weather in the spring.
The town will actually not have to deviate much from its repair plans in light of the collapse. The intent had been to bid the work later this month or in April. It’s expected the Town Board will consider a resolution to approve emergency expenses related to the repairs at its meeting next Wednesday.
One of the two entrances to Town Hall that were closed earlier this week has been reopened. The Delaware Avenue entrance remains cordoned off. On that side of the building, the parapet can be seen bowing outwards, likely due to the same expanding ice that is attributed to the collapse.“
