PASSAIC PUBLIC LIBRARY
PASSAIC PUBLIC LIBRARY IN THE NEWS
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Softball caused Reid Library's roof leak
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PASSAIC -- Mayor Sammy Rivera says the biggest problem with the Reid Library roof fits in the palm of his right hand.
It's an old, dirty softball.
In February, library officials proposed closing the historic building on Third Street because they said it had a "failed roof" and to replace it would be too costly. They pointed to an architect's estimate of $155,000.
But Rivera, who last week announced plans to form a foundation to save the library, said that he asked his friend, Michael Fernandez, president of Clifton & Clark Inc., a Passaic-based contractor, to take a look at the condition of the roof and write up his own cost estimate.
Rivera said Fernandez, who climbed onto the roof last Monday, found a softball stuck in the Reid's roof drainage system that Fernandez said had blocked rainwater from running down the pipes properly. The roof doesn't need replacing, although there is a bit of water damage, the mayor said. Fernandez can clean and repair the branch's roof for $13,500, he said, waving a one-page cost estimate in his left hand.
"This is the $190,000 softball," Rivera said with a grin, as he sat behind his desk in the mayor's office last week. "It's absurd, obviously, that the company, they were checking the roof and didn't see the ball."
In October 2005, an architect for the Goshen, N.Y.-based LAN Associates told library officials that to replace the roof would cost at least $155,000, based on preliminary observations. The firm later upped the estimate to $171,400. At a May 17 special public meeting on the future of the Reid, library, officials presented a lengthy survey on the physical condition of the building. In the survey, LAN's architect said to fully upgrade the branch would cost more than $1 million.
Rivera said he has spoken with members of the Passaic-based United Mexican Chamber of Commerce who he said expressed interest in contributing to his Friends to Save the Library foundation. Rivera said that he also spoke with Schools Superintendent Robert Holster about starting an advisory committee for the library.Rivera had sent Fernandez to look at the building one day after promising at the special meeting that the library would not close. The mayor said he had a hunch the library's roof was in solid condition after he toured the building on a stormy April day without finding a drop of water inside. Library officials had claimed that a leaky roof was the cause of structural damage to the building's foundation.
Rivera said a broken window in the basement was the cause of the peeling plaster along the foundation wall. He also said if library officials wanted to make the building handicapped accessible, Fernandez told him that building a ramp would cost about $20,000. LAN's estimate for the same work runs more than $76,000.
LAN Associates architect Peter Manouvelos was unavailable for comment Monday. Library officials said they would look into the Rivera's softball theory.
"All that I can tell you we have had the professional architects come to look it at it twice," said Library Board President Craig Miller.
"If this whole thing comes down to the softball, hey, it will make life easier," he said.