High Springs City Commission addresses mold at fire station, opens Douglass Community Center

BY DAVID LIGHTMAN

HIGH SPRINGS, Fla. – At their August 8 Regular Meeting, the High Springs City Commission renamed the former Douglass School to the Douglass Community Center. Commissioners also approved a request to remediate the mold infestation at the High Springs Fire Station, accepted a proposal to begin work on the Priest Theater, and decided to postpone the purchase of a new heavy rescue truck for the fire department.

Douglass Community Center

The first item of business was approving the renaming of the site of the former Douglass School and Catherine L. Taylor Park to the Douglass Community Center, in honor of the school’s historical significance. Without any discussion or public comments, Commissioner Byran Williams made a motion to approve the resolution, Commissioner Tristan Grunder seconded the motion, and it passed unanimously.

City Attorney Scott Walker introduced a resolution to set user fees and regulations for the use of the newly-renamed Douglass Community Center. 

Mayor Katherine Weitz asked, “The capacity for the Douglass Center (67) is so much less than the Civic Center (150), but the square footage is almost the same?” 

Fire Chief Joseph Peters said he could raise the capacity to 98, based on allowing each person 10 square feet in the 980-square-foot building. 

City Manager Jeremy Marshall said he set the user fee at $100 compared to $150 for the Civic Center, and he did this to incentivize people to use the Douglass Center even though the capacity is less. Marshall said, “We just spent all this time and effort in remodeling this building, and then people say ‘I’ll rent the Civic Center because of the capacity of it’ and then the Douglass Community Center does not get used.”

During public comment, Sue Weller asked about user fees. Marshall said he is forming a committee to review the pricing schedules at all the public facilities in the city, and he may want to make some changes.

Commissioner Grunder made a motion to approve the resolution and have the Fire Chief increase the capacity limit. 

Commissioner Williams asked if 98 people will really fit in the building if someone tries to reach maximum capacity, and he expressed concerns about people trying to break the rule and having more than 98 people inside the 980-square-foot building.

Commissioner Andrew Miller said, “I agree with Commissioner Williams. I don’t think you should raise it that much.”

Commissioner Wayne Bloodsworth said, “Can we just meet in the middle and go 75?… If something was to happen in the kitchen, you’re going to have a mass exodus.”

Chief Peters responded, “We can do 75. That’d be fine.”

Williams said, “I’m thinking about safety… I am going to say 75 people at the most.”

Grunder clarified that his motion did not need to be amended because it permits the Chief to set any capacity limit. Williams seconded the motion, and it passed unanimously. The grand opening for the Douglass Community Center was on Saturday, August 10.

Mold in the fire station

Fire Chief Peters spoke at the podium: “This is not going to be an easy conversation for me, obviously. We discovered some staining in the ceiling tiles in the bedroom area, bunk room area. We investigated. Then we thought maybe we had a roof leak or something like that, even though the roof is fairly new… We got up in the ceiling and noticed that there was a tremendous amount of condensation on the A/C duct work, which was causing this staining in the tiles. We saw things that look like they could possibly be mold.

“So at my direction, I had Heritage come in and look at that. He took some numbers. As far as humidity, the humidity levels in the building, in the bunk room and the day room area, and the kitchen were well above 80%. Normal house and normal building humidity levels should be around 50 to 60%. They should not be 80%, sometimes 85%. So the humidity levels were really high, so we had to investigate why these humidity levels were so high, and then we also took samples of the areas that we thought there might be mold.  When those samples came back, they came back ‘Yes,’ they were mold. 

“The gentleman from Heritage decided that this was above him, that we really needed to probably have a mechanical contractor come in and look at the A/C system as a whole and see what was causing this to happen, because there was no air exchange in the upstairs, in the attic area between the ceiling tiles and the roof. And that area was considerably warmer than the area inside the station itself. So as we went through and looked at that with the mechanical contractor, he said that in a nutshell the entire system was probably installed improperly back when it was installed, what, 10 years ago. So this is not a brand new issue… It’s something that I just noticed, and I just had to take action on because I really can’t in good faith, and I can’t sleep good at night, knowing that my men and women are over there sleeping in a moldy building.”

Peters said there is widespread mold in the in the bedroom, bunk room, and living quarters, but it’s not the most dangerous type of mold. He continued, “Upon investigation of the women’s restroom, there was mold on the shower in there and on the ceiling of the shower. When we investigated that, come to find out that approximately a year ago we lost an exhaust fan in the women’s restroom. I don’t know who was charged with trying to get that fixed or get it done. That was a prior administration before me. But it was never addressed, and that mold is actually black mold, which is the bad mold. So we’ve had to completely block off our women’s restroom. So we’re down to one restroom.”

Peters continued, “The mechanical engineer suggests that we completely redo the entire A/C system for the bedroom, the living room, living quarters, the kitchen. He also suggests that we put more fans in the restrooms and actually have them exhaust to the outside. Currently, they don’t exhaust to the outside. They exhaust to the attic space. That’s completely not correct. That shouldn’t be that way. And then the mold remediation has to occur. So what I gave you is a couple of quotes there. The A/C system redo – we’re looking at approximately $178,000. And then we’re looking at $6,452 to remediate the mold, and that doesn’t even include the replacement of anything that they remove. To remediate the mold, we have walls in the bedroom that are soft where the drywall has absorbed so much fluid that they’re now soft. Those will have to be removed. Once they remediate everything, we’ll have to have a construction company or someone come in and replace all of the drywall and replace probably the women’s shower because that’s where the black mold is. So what you have in front of you is a total of $190,500. That doesn’t include the reconstruction costs.” Peters said his firefighters would do whatever painting and drywall work they could to save money for the City, but the total cost could easily reach or exceed $250,000.

After some discussion, City Manager Marshall asked if they would need a trailer for the staff to live in while the work is being done. Peters said the mold remediation specialist should be able to isolate each room as they work on it, and relocation should not be necessary. 

Bloodsworth said he didn’t like that idea. Peters said his staff has no problem with it, and they are also welcome to sleep in his office. Marshall said a portable building for the firefighters to live in could always be an option later.

Mayor Weitz asked about holding the original contractor who did the faulty work responsible for the remediation costs. Since so much time had elapsed, Attorney Walker and Finance Director Diane Wilson did not think that would be a viable path to pursue, but Wilson said she would research who had done the work.

Grunder said, “We can talk about this all night, but we know what we got to do… Even if it costs 300 grand, you still got to fix it. They can’t live in there like that, and we shouldn’t ask them to… I’ll make a motion that we fix the mold issue and put a cap of $250,000 on it. Anything over that, it comes back to us, just for approval.” Commissioner Miller seconded the motion. Walker said the expense should be considered an emergency purchase, according to policy. Before taking a vote, Weitz reminded everyone that the money would be coming from ARPA funds. The motion to fix the mold at the fire station passed unanimously.

Priest Theater

In other business, Commissioners unanimously accepted a $50,000 proposal from Paul Stressing Associates, Inc. for the structural mitigation work to be completed at the Priest Theater. The work includes stabilization of the existing perimeter building, removal of the existing roof and roof structure, and removal and replacement of the existing compromised steel frame.

Heavy rescue truck

After nearly an hour of discussion, the Commissioners and City Manager Marshall decided to pause and not move forward with the purchase of a new heavy rescue truck until the old truck can be sold. Marshall clarified that they can advertise the existing truck without first needing to declare it as surplus.