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player ready...Heavy rains this week exposed leaks in the roof of Gary City Hall, causing the Common Council to reschedule this week’s meeting from Tuesday to Thursday.
The council had been scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday, but City Hall staffers discovered the leaks in the ceiling of the council chambers Tuesday morning.
The fact that such leaks exist isn’t new. “Anytime there’s heavy rain, we get water leaking into the chamber,” council’s office manager, Vanessa Williams, said.
But Williams said officials noticed one new leak that had never developed before – one in the ceiling directly over the spot where Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson usually sits.
“The mayor would have been soaked if we had tried to hold the meeting,” Williams said. Crews were already working late Tuesday afternoon trying to patch the ceiling and Freeman-Wilson’s chair was dripping wet.
Freeman-Wilson was not available to comment on the situation, but spokeswoman LaLosa Dent-Burns said, “We’ve been working on (fixing the leaks) all day. We’re going to fix this as quickly as possible.”
Williams said that water from the leaks ruined paper documents that had been set up on the desks of the Common Council members.
That business will now be conducted at 6 p.m. Thursday, although the meeting will be held at the Genesis Convention Center in the Indiana Room. Williams said officials did not think the council chambers would be ready for a Thursday meeting.
“It wouldn’t be appropriate to try to meet (in the chambers) while work is taking place,” she said.
The cancellation didn’t stop council members from showing up at City Hall, as Michael Protho, D-2nd, and Linda Barnes Caldwell, D-5th, both were present Tuesday afternoon.
“I’m here to do my job,” Protho said. “I’m ready to work.”
Gregory Tejeda is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.