|Photo by Emma Delk| Moundsville city manager Rick Healy said the new city buidling would require "rework" before new construction can begin on the project during the Oct. 15 city council meeting.

Moundsville City Manager Rick Healy addressed at Moundsville City Council’s last meeting the construction rework required, including mold assessments and abatement, before new construction can begin on the new city building.

At a progress meeting for the city building project held the morning before the meeting, Healy said the project’s surety company, Atlantic Specialty Insurance Company; the new contractor, Great Lakes Restoration; the surety company’s construction consultant; JD&E Construction Company and McKinley Architecture and Engineering met to discuss plans for scheduling the rework that needs to be completed on the building before the project can move forward.

The new city building project began in September 2022 but had been stalled since March, when the original contractor, &build, ceased work and subsequently filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Due to project delays, Healy reported that mold had begun to grow in sealed-off areas of the building in July. At the council meeting, Healy said the new general contractor would “start mobilizing immediately” to repair any damage to the building incurred by the project delays.

“They will start mobilizing immediately to reseal locations [of the new city building] that are open to the outside air and currently having water come into the building,” Healy said. “They’re also going to be cleaning and organizing the lot.”

Healy said a project schedule involving the building’s rework will be “supplied soon,” and progress meetings between the parties involved in the project will continue to be held every other Tuesday.

Healy noted Great Lakes Restoration was included in meetings with “all of the subtractors,” adding “many, if not all” of the subcontractors will be returning to the project.

“Their [Great Lakes Restoration] goal is to complete the building as it was meant to be built in as timely a manner as possible,” Healy said. “I think we had a really good kickoff for that.”

Council member Eugene Saunders questioned Healy about how the mold in the building would be addressed. Healy responded that a third-party consultant would come in first to assess the entire building for mold and then complete a report to tell the contractor what needs to be done to get rid of it.

Healy added the third-party mold report would be completed before any work is done on the building and would be done at the contractor’s expense, not the city’s.

“The third-party consultant will come on to do the mold testing, and then they’ll recommend the abatement process,” Healy outlined. “The new contractor will have to go through the abatement process, and then the third-party consultant will return and retest to ensure the building is safe.”

Healy added the mold testing was one aspect of the “numerous areas” of the building that will require rework before construction work on the project can begin again.

“Things may have to be taken apart and reassembled, so to speak,” Healy said. “That’s going to be an aspect of the project that will set the final construction end date back, but it all has to be done as part of the construction.”

Healy said no end date was scheduled for the project. He added the contractor was targeting completion in May or June of next year.

In other motions, council members unanimously approved a motion to direct City Attorney Thomas White to draft revisions to the Sanitation Ordinance authorizing City Manager Rick Healy to determine when residents need additional dumpsters or additional dumpster pickups.

According to Moundsville Codified Ordinance 953.09 City Garbage Vehicles; City Dumpsters, the collection of garbage vehicles owned, leased or used by the city “shall be under the supervision of the City Manager and directed by the Commissioner of Public Works.” When the city has available residential dumpster carts, they may be rented to residential users on a “first come, first served basis.”

White said city employees had recently run into a problem with multi-family units in the city having one dumpster that is not emptied regularly enough or large enough to prevent trash overflow.

“We can define what needs to be done based on the number of housing units, but we decided that wasn’t really fair because other housing structures may not have the overflow problem,” White said. “This ordinance will allow the city manager to decide whether they need a second pickup throughout the week or a larger dumpster based on that specific instance. That should take care of the overflow problem.”

After the motion was approved, council member Randy Chamberlain displayed a photo of an overflowing dumpster in the city to residents attending the meeting. He said the photo was “the reason why” the revision was under discussion.

“This [the dumpster in the photo] is an open invitation for vermin, disease and a whole host of other things,” Chamberlain said. “I’m very much in favor of having the city manager try to take control of this situation.”

Healy said under the revised ordinance, it was “up to his discretion” which dumpsters would undergo a second pickup or be replaced with a larger dumpster. He outlined that the city would contact the dumpster owner and tell them the city now requires them to have a second pickup or they must increase the size of their dumpster.

“There’s really nothing else we can do because, as the picture showed, the overflow happens every week and can become really bad,” Healy said. “We have a couple of dumpsters overflowing in the area, so this will help solve the problem.”