An engineer from Barry Isett & Associates will be paid to inspect the roof of Borough Hall and give his recommendation on how a roofer should shingle it.
Though the roof isn’t leaking, it was installed when the building was erected in 1991. The roof shingles may be in need of replacement, as they approach the end of their 30-year life.
The roof was patched to replace missing shingles in 2016 following a licensed roofer having inspected it. The roofer also provided a quote for a complete tear-off and re-shingle job. The wood underlay was determined to be sound last year. Council voted to replace missing shingles and budgeted for a new roof this year.
What occurred at Monday’s Council Meeting exposes the fallibility of any Council and I also learned a lesson. That being, don’t second a motion for discussion that would have likely died without it.
Councilman Robert Lewis made a motion to have our borough engineering firm inspect the Borough Hall roof for what was needed to replace it.
I provided a second, so that I could express my belief that an engineer wasn’t needed to do the job of a roofer. We would be paying the cost of an engineer to tell us something a licensed roofer would be doing anyway.
What followed was a discussion that ended up with our Borough Manager being directed to contact the engineering firm to request of them the cost of having them do an inspection.
As there was still a motion in front of Council to have the engineering firm do the inspection, it went to a vote.
The original motion wasn’t repeated as a reminder and it became apparent that most forgot what the original motion was for and thought they were voting on the Borough Manager to contact Barry Isett & Associates for a quote of their cost if they did an inspection.
The motion to approve the engineer inspecting the roof passed 4-1 (Lewis, James, Mammana, DePaul - Dees dissenting).
I reminded them that they just voted in favor of what most just discussed waiting on until our Borough Manager contacted the engineering firm for a quote, hoping that one of them might make a motion for reconsideration of the motion just passed. That didn’t happen.
“Reconsideration” is a seldom used rule for a governing body that realizes they made an error on a vote. A reconsideration can only be done by a member on the prevailing side of the vote and must be done before the conclusion of the meeting.
UPDATE: At a following Council Meeting, another vote was taken regarding using an Engineer. This original decision was reversed.
Disclaimer: On January 4, 2016, the owner of WestEastonPA.com began serving on the West Easton Council following an election. Postings and all content found on this website are the opinions of Matthew A. Dees and may not necessarily represent the opinion of the governing body for The Borough of West Easton.
