The Conrad Building in Johnstown is condemned and continues to be a danger to the community. However, council members are at odds on how to go about addressing the issue.  

Thursday night in Johnstown, a meeting was held to discuss the future of the building, but only two council members showed up so no plan can be moved forward.

Council members John Williams and Charlene Stanton believe that the time to act on the Conrad Building is now as it was condemned in 2009 and currently has bricks and parts of the roof falling off.

“Now it is, in our estimation, a clear and present danger. I hope it doesn’t come to that. My fear, and Charlene’s fear is for someone to get hurt, or killed. I hope it doesn’t come to that,” says Williams.

While there was no meeting, the council members stayed to answer questions from the residents.

“You see behind you. You have empty seats, also you see the crowd that was here tonight. They also had questions for the City Manager and one resident questioned why he was in such a hurry to leave because they wanted to ask him questions and I believe that is unfortunate too,” says Stanton.

Stanton and Williams are proposing that the city manager look for bids to demolish the building. They propose that the city take temporary loans from their urban development action grant program and capital account for an amount of $300,000. The city would then pay that back over the next 5 years with no interest from their general budget. They say their estimate comes from the city manager but that they haven’t been able to see that evaluation. In fact, they claim they don’t have the same access to information as other council members, requiring them to file right to know requests.

“You would think it would be, ‘Oh sure, we’ll get you a copy of that information!’ Usually you ask for information, you get no answers, you wait about 20-30 days, then you’re forced to file right to know requests to get any information,” says Stanton.

Marie Mock, another council member, says the full council agrees that the Conrad needs to come down and that the city manager is currently working on that from both the legal and financial sides. With that, she doesn’t see the need for special meetings or a council vote. She expects the Conrad to come down within a month.