FAIRMONT– The Martin County Commissioners heard of new complications with the Martin County Courthouse roof project during its meeting Tuesday morning.

Bob Mickelson of ISG shared aerial photos taken of the courthouse’s roof that shows its current state.

“You can see on the bottom literally the mortar is sand and it’s run out,” Mickelson said.

Lon Gorsch of Renaissance Roofing said he’s working on gathering information to figure out how much of an additional cost it will be.

“The building continues to surprise us,” said Mickelson.

Gorsch estimates it will be an additional $150,000 and an extra two weeks.

Commissioner Elliot Belgard asked if it can be done at this time of the year. Mickelson said that’s what the shelter is for and Gorsch added that they’ll need to heat the area to about 50 degrees to be able to do the masonry work.

Mickelson said they have $75,000 going toward it but need the additional funds to be authorized by the board.

“I know it needs to be done but is it $150,000 or is it going to come in at $250,000? I’m a little uncomfortable,” said commissioner Kathy Smith.

“We don’t want to ask you to approve blue sky and you don’t want to do that, either. Right now we’re going to keep moving forward. We have no choice. We have it open and there’s some severe damage up there. We have to keep moving forward,” Mickelson said.

Commissioner Richard Koons said he understands that things can happen on a building, but said that the dome project almost tripled in cost and this one has almost doubled.

“Someone needs to start taking responsibility,” he said.

Mickelson asked the commissioners if they would like to proceed with the project with the $75,000 while waiting for the final numbers for the rest of the work.

“I think that’s a good plan,” said Smith.

“The bottom line is this is our courthouse and we’ve been charged with taking care of it so we need to get it fixed. We really don’t have a choice,” said Commissioner Steve Flohrs.

The commissioners approved moving forward with what’s in the budget. Mickelson and Gorsch said they can learn more about what’s needed and try to pin down a firm price before the next regular meeting.

The council also heard about a change order for the HR building roof replacement project from Bill Murrell of Garland Companies.

Murrell said while the project was being worked on, it was discovered that almost 100 percent of the insulation was wet, which likely happened due to water seeping in through leaks and getting trapped between concrete.

He said it’s unusual to find a roof that size to be 100 percent saturated in water. He said none of the product could be re-used and they wouldn’t be able to go over wet insulation as it would just extend the problem.

He said they pre-established prices had been set anticipating a small percentage of wet insulation, but it ended up being a larger number.

The additional cost ended up being $51,700 to cover the costs of new insulation plus a vapor barrier.

Belgard said it’s a big number but obviously it’s been done already.

“Once you open up the roof and you’ve exposed this problem, there’s no closing it back up,” Murrell said.

He said unfortunately the reality is when opening up roofs there’s often problems that weren’t known at the start.

Board member Richard Koons made a motion to approve of the change order.

“Without a roof you don’t have a building,” said Koons.

The change order was approved.

In other news, Doug Hartke of the Fox Conversation League was present to provide notice to the county of two land purchases by the league.

One is 110 acres in Westford Township and the other is 30.6 acres in Lake Belt Township. He said both of the purchases should be complete by the end of the year.

In other action, the commissioners:

— Approved a three year contract with Summit to provide food services to the jail.

— Approved a motion to put out a Request for Proposal for a construction manager for the proposed Justice Center.

— Denied the city of Fairmont’s request to reduce the price of a forfeited property from $5,000 to 1$.