By ZEINAB NAJM
Times-Herald Newspapers
HEIGHTS — Part of the City Hall roof will be getting a long-awaited fix to prevent ongoing leaking issues. The City Council approved a $76,500 bid from AA Eldaou, Inc. for the project during its Oct. 12 meeting, with Council Chairwoman Denise Malinowski-Maxwell the only one opposed.
This bid is an alternate method proposed as a full mechanically fastened overlay of the failing part of the building along with new aluminum coping.
Included in the bid from AA Eldaou is a 10-year labor and material warranty.
City Engineer Ali Dib said the replacement bid is for a previously approved contract to do the sections of the roof that were experiencing some issues.
Most recently, the roof leaked following rainfall on June 25. Water leaked into the city clerk’s and treasurer’s offices. City Clerk Lynne Senia covered items in the office with plastic sheeting.
The roof project was publicly advertised for bids three times, originally in July for a silicon sealing application to address the roof leak. Two bids were received without any of the bid documents so they were deemed non-responsive.
In August, the bid was put out again and Freedom Contracting bid $196,250 as the only bidder for the silicon overlay. The last advertisement was in September when the procurement staff called local contractors to solicit interest in the project.
When contractors who did walk throughs were contacted by staff, they said some of the reasons why bids were not submitted were due to labor, material shortage, size of the project and time of the year, because the silicone requires 50 degree weather or warmer to install.
AA Eldaou submitted the overlay bid as opposed to the silicone cover for $76,500 as an alternate method. Dib said the two bids submitted, one for silicone and the other for overlay, were evaluated.
The overlay proposal includes coping, which is the aluminum on top of the sides.
During the meeting, Dib said the project will address only the leaking areas of the roof and not the entire roof.
Councilman Zouher Abdel-Hak said he walked on the roof and saw the patched repairs, and said the city needs to know if there is mold or anything underneath.
“It’s too dangerous to do something drastic and spend money before we really discover what is underneath the roof and what we need to do,” he said.
Dib said to do that properly, the roof would have to be stripped back to the deck.
“The issue is there has never been a hazmat evaluation of that facility so if I do that you might be opening up a can of worms that you have to address the subsurface of the roof then go all the way,” Dib said.
He added there is no time in this year or material left to address it and that he wanted to address the current issue which is the continuous leak and band-aids. Dib also said the city could still look at options later for the entire roof or city hall building.
Councilman Dave Abdallah said he had questions on materials being used and trusted Dib’s expertise. He was concerned about the company selected because he do not know them and wanted to ensure they could handle the warranty cost like bigger companies that have been around longer.
“I want to make sure that it’s a company that can carry the cost if we run into a warranty problem and not something that shuts down a few months later,” Abdallah said.
Malinowski-Maxwell asked about the former bid from December 2020 that was brought to the council by late Mayor Daniel Paletko. That $288,500 proposal was from Advanced Roofing, which the council approved but was never signed.
Following Paletko’s death, Mayor Bill Bazzi reviewed the contract, but said it was vaguely written. Dib said that proposal did not have a detailed scope for the project.
(Zeinab Najm can be reached at [email protected].)