By Gary Ogle
gogle@wbcowqel.com
At the end of a meeting with Crawford County Commissioners and architect Bruce Heinlen regarding the courthouse roof, facilities manager Dave Weir sat back and said. “You’ve kind of thrown us a curve.”
What remains to be seen is how well the county can hit the pitch.
Heinlen admitted he wasn’t particularly looking forward to Thursday’s meeting, the latest of many about the leaky roof. While the plans had been all along to replace the current roof with trusses all the way across, Heinlen’s latest report is that the best course of action is to keep the low-slope style roof.
“There are a lot of different factors that are creating your problems,” Heinlen told the commissioners. “I’ve looked at about a dozen different possibilities of what we can do to get a decent pitched roof. Of those I’ve looked at that probably isn’t going to be a reasonable possibility.”
What is going to remain the course of action is to eliminate the current internal drainage system that has deteriorated to the point Common Pleas Courtroom has nearly as many buckets as jury seats during a heavy rain or spring thaw.
Weir said given the latest report the county officials need to “digest and adapt” regarding the best way to approach the project. The commissioners had no firm estimate in hand with the latest report as to a possible cost of the project.
They had hoped to put out for bids this fall with an eye on early spring to begin work, but that timeline will likely have to be adjusted as well.