Monessen moving city hall due to mold issue

By KRISTIE LINDEN

klinden@yourmvi.com

Monessen’s current city hall at 557 Donner Ave. is full of mold, according to officials, and municipal operations will be moved to a new setup at the former Community Bank building next door.

That was decided during a meeting Friday that was contentious from the minute it began because council members Tony Orzechowski and Lois Thomas said they learned about the meeting by reading an ad in the newspaper.

Most questions Thomas or Orzechowski had were met with yelling and gavel pounding.

A date for the move hasn’t been set, and the location of the next city council meeting will be determined soon.

Mayor Matt Shorraw said a piece of wallpaper that has been slowly peeling away from a portion of the wall behind the table where council members sit during meetings led to an investigation that uncovered extreme amounts of mold throughout the building. 

Shorraw said an expert determined there is mold in the vestibule, the treasurer’s office, above the ceiling in the main room and in the eastern wall that used to be connected to a building that has since been torn down, where the wallpaper has begun to come off the interior wall.

Shorraw said the eastern wall contains 100% mold and that documents from the time the city moved into the building in 2017 showed there were holes in the roof and the exterior wall.

The roof was patched when the wallpaper issue brought attention to the leak, Shorraw said. Concrete was sprayed onto terra cotta on the exterior wall at some point trapping moisture inside, leading to the mold issue, he said.

Shorraw said there have also been pest issues, including mice and boring beetles that need to be exterminated.   

To read the rest of the story, please see a copy of Saturday’s Mon Valley Independent, call 724-314-0035 to subscribe or subscribe to our online edition at http://monvalleyindependent.com.