The roofs at Wichita’s Mid-Continent Airport will have to wait at least another week.
City council members put off their vote this morning to borrow $50,000 to hire a contractor to inspect hail damage from a hail storm last September and prepare designs for areas that need repair.
District 5 City Council member Jeff Longwell asked the council to defer their vote until a regular meeting next week where members could discuss the move and take comments from the public.
The move comes a day after The Eagle published a story about the proposed inspection. In the story, council member Michael O’Donnell questions why the city can’t inspect the roof itself, given that it has a central inspection department that conducts commercial roofing inspections and an engineering department.
City Manager Robert Layton said the city doesn’t have the in-house expertise to conduct a detailed inspection and take core samples of the roof that could be used in negotiations to settle a dispute with insurers. He said only $24,500 is for the inspection. The rest would cover specifications and design details used to repair damaged areas.