Walls come falling down
Crumbling tiles spark study talks in Fredonia
The walls may not be tumbling down like when Joshua fought the Battle of Jericho, but crumbling tiles are certainly exposing some serious issues in Fredonia — quite literally.
The village fire hall on West Main Street suffered a bit of damage when part of the exterior tiling in the back of the hose tower fell off late last week. Village Administrator Richard St. George informed the OBSERVER Monday that the village is awaiting results of an asbestos test for the deteriorated building material.
“We’re having a structural engineer come in and take a look at it and make sure everything is OK before we put everything back together,” he added. “We’re having a study commissioned to take a look at the building and go from there.”
Mayor Athanasia Landis noted the asbestos analysis is simply routine. St. George pointed out the site cannot be cleaned up until that testing is complete.
The fire hall is over 30 years old and has a history of building issues, particularly when it comes to moisture infiltrating the exterior stucco.
The current village budget set money aside for the study which St. George mentioned. The cascading tiles could not have timed their fall better, as engineers must thoroughly investigate the walls’ interiors to assess the damage and build bid specifications to refurbish and repair the fire hall.
“They were going to do it anyway,” Landis remarked.
The engineers could come back to the village with a proposal as early as this week, St. George said.
During Monday’s village board meeting, Trustee Douglas Essek — a volunteer firefighter — brought up the idea of shared public facilities, either with the city of Dunkirk, the town of Pomfret or even alone. Such a facility could include the fire and police departments; the village’s police department also faces building issues and is seeking a new home for its headquarters.
“At this point, it could be something very minor; I mean, this is a situation that has taken place over a number of years, the problem there (at the fire hall) with the stucco and the moisture issue,” Essek said. “If we find out that it’s a tremendous cost and problem there, that’s where I was kind of looking to any kind of ideas for (sharing facilities).”
Landis invited Essek to research such ideas and report back to the board in a couple weeks. She added the fire hall cannot be left to deteriorate further, even if a shared facility is pursued.
Email: gfox@observertoday.com. Twitter: @gfoxnews
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