JASPER, Tenn. – A leaky roof has plagued the Marion County Justice Center for some time, and now county leaders are using grant money to help with some repairs.
County Mayor David Jackson said Marion requested proposals for work on the building’s skylights but got no bidders.
That allowed the county to contract directly with Tri-State Roofing Contractors in Chattanooga for the job.
Jackson said the repairs will cost $35,287, but the county applied for a $17,000 energy grant last year that can help with the expense.
“We’ll have to match $17,500 with it to pay for this,” he said. “Those skylights are leaking bad and are causing some possible problems inside the jail over there.”
At its February meeting, the Marion County Commission voted unanimously to accept the grant and cover the matching funds.
Commissioner Wayne Willis works at the center and questioned whether the repairs would solve all of the water problems at the facility.
The repairs will address only the skylights, Jackson said.
“We have more leaks besides that,” Willis said. “It’s not in the courtroom, but in the hall and the holding cells.”
Commissioner Tommy Thompson said Tri-State’s workers should look into the other needed repairs while they fix the building’s skylights.
“That leaking could cause us a bunch of problems,” he said.
If the additional costs exceed $10,000, the matter would have to be voted on by the board. If not, Jackson could approve the repair work immediately.
Jackson said the county is in “pretty good shape” with its building maintenance account.
Thompson said he wished county leaders had demanded a different roof design when the structure was built originally because flat-topped buildings have “broke us up in the past.”
The building has a ballast roof in one area, Willis said, and that might be the origin of the problems.
“In layman’s terms, it has got rubber membrane with rocks holding it down,” he said. “Every place where a rock makes an indenture, it freezes and causes problems. It just needs to be changed.”
Only a couple of small sections of the roof are flat, Commission Chairman Gene Hargis said, but those areas do seem to be causing the problems.
“Why it was designed like that, I don’t know,” he said.
Ryan Lewis is based in Marion County. Contact him at ryanlewis34@gmail.com.