Erie County is still repairing the fire-damaged Board of Elections office space. The final cost for repair is expected to approach $1 million.
On Thursday, the Erie County Legislature will review a $415,000 repair contract that will fix the building roof and the toilet areas inside the Board of Elections space which were heavily damaged during an August 30th fire.
While other agencies were back at work in the building within days, elections activities are still not back.
"We're in the process of getting everything done," said Buildings and Grounds Deputy Public Works Commissioner Daniel Fitzgibbons. The goal is to have elections activity back in their home space by September 1.
"The outside work has been out to bid and the bids are coming in and the work should be starting within a few weeks or so, and we are also doing some of the work in-house with our employees and that work is going well, too," Fitzgibbons said.
Besides outside contractors, county employees performed asbestos cleanup in the fire-damaged area. Fitzgibbons said county workers will do all of the computer wiring to get the Board of Elections back up and running.
Though the repairs are proving to be costly, more is needed to fully modernize the space.
"There is talk that in the future that we will do some additional work to the building in future years in capital budgets, replacing all the roofs, maybe, replacing the windows and possibly redoing the HVAC in the building," said Fitzgibbons, who added that the boiler room has been updated with computerized controls installed.
