Pictured is councilman Brent Sheldon, R-Ward 1 and chair of the finance committee, as he reads the resolution regarding the change order to the bid for the repairs to the city hall roof during the most recent city council work session. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

Following multiple areas of concern being found during work to re-roof the main roof of City Hall, the city is looking to add more money to the project bid to help fix problems discovered on the penthouse roof.

During the most recent work session of the City Council, Councilman Brent Sheldon, R-Ward 1 and chair of the council’s Finance Committee, discussed the resolution put on the council’s agenda, saying $400,000 was originally approved for the project in December, and the resolution up for approval during Monday’s council meeting looks to add $80,000 to that to help with the additional repairs in a change order with Jamestown Roofing.

Mark Roetzer, city interim public works director, said there are actually two roofs to City Hall, the main roof and the penthouse roof.

“The penthouse roof is above a mechanical room for the elevators and the stairwell,” Roetzer said. “So, as they’ve been going around the penthouse and getting it more watertight, they noticed leaks coming in the building from around where the elevators are.”

After further investigation into that, Roetzer said they discovered that that roof also is in need of being replaced. This roof will be what is known as a layover roof.

“They won’t be ripping that roof off, they will be putting material over the top of the existing one,” Roetzer said. “And it’s not a very big roof. It’s small but there’s a lot of equipment under it so it’s a lot of messing around to get around underneath that.”

Councilman Jeff Russell, R-At Large, asked if that meant that they would not have known that the penthouse roof also needed work when the original bid was given out, and Roetzer said that was the case. When they first looked at the roof four or five years ago they did not think it needed fixing immediately.

“But, it’s now to the point where the roofers are there, the equipment is there,” Roetzer said. “It has to be done in the next two, three, four years, but it will never be cheaper than right now.”