By Tom Grace
Cooperstown News Bureau
The Otsego County Courthouse in Cooperstown has been unofficially closed for about two weeks but may open again next week, chief court clerk Gloria Chandler said.
The courthouse was closed after visitors and employees detected the odor of fuel oil near the grand jury room.
Douglas Czerkies, Otsego County director of building maintenance, said an oil feed line to a boiler was leaking and has been repaired.
``The boilers are right below the grand jury room,'' he noted.
Czerkies said the problem worsened on warm days, when the boilers were working intermittently.
After repairing the leak, the building services crew cleaned the building thoroughly, he said.
``We had the Emergency Services Department _ our own in-house service _ do air testing twice, and it came up negative,'' he said. ``We did a complete report on it to show it was safe.''
The state Court System also has sent in a crew to test the air quality, Czerkies said.
``That's who we're waiting to hear from,'' he said. ``It's a state decision. I never officially closed the building, so I'm not going to officially open it."
Czerkies said the heating system has had its share of problems.
``There have been issues since the building was remodeled in the '80s,'' he said. ``This time, we went through and foam-sealed everything we could in the basement to try to isolate the boiler room from the rest of the building.''
Czerkies said the building's two commercial boilers are about 25 years old and need upgrading.
``They're each rated at 1.3 million BTUs,'' he said, referring to the energy measurement of a British thermal unit. ``We're going to spend about $17,000 to do everything we need to do to bring them up to modern times.''
Chandler said that in lieu of the historic courthouse at 193 Main St., judges, attorneys, staff and others have been using courtrooms in the adjacent county office and the court annex buildings.
She said she expected to hear soon from state court officials on the results of air-sampling tests conducted at the state's request.
