WESTFIELD – City residents are huffing and puffing at City Hall to get to offices, especially on the second and third floors, to do their business because the building’s lone elevator has been out of service since Monday, March 24, when a state inspector issued a noncompliance notice.
Building Superintendent Jon Flagg said the noncompliance notification was “not a safety issue” and that issues cited by the state inspector were corrected by the afternoon of the following day, Tuesday, March 25.
Flagg said that City Hall maintenance personnel and technicians from the city’s elevator contractor, ThyssenKrupp, worked to correct the cited issues, mostly in the control room where a water line had to be boxed to separate it from the elevator’s electronics. The pipe has been in that location for years, but had not been cited as a noncompliance issue in the past.
“I’ve been in contact with the elevator company every day,” Flagg said. “They have completed the reports and sent that paperwork in to the state last week.”
“So now it’s a waiting game for the state to re-inspect it and put it back into operation,” Flagg said. “The problem is that there is only a handful of inspectors for all of the elevators in the state, so there is a huge backlog.”
While many residents are capable of climbing the stairs, some residents, especially those who have mobility and COPD health issues, are not able to trudge up the flights of stairs to city offices.
Ward 4 Councilor Mary O’Connell suggested that the City Council, which conducted two public hearings Thursday night, should continue the hearings until the elevator is back in service.
“There is no elevator service which limits handicapped access to these public hearings,” O’Connell said.
The City Council members disregarded O’Connell suggestion and voted to close the hearings.
