Saturday, April 08, 2000
Governor's home in need of repairs
Statehouse rotunda also in Taft budget
BY ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
The Associated Press
COLUMBUS — Some of Gov. Bob Taft's proposed $1.8 billion construction budget will pay for repairs close to home: the governor's mansion in suburban Columbus.
Included in Mr. Taft's capital budget for 2001-02 are requests for $81,000 for repairs and electrical upgrades to the 75-year-old house in Bexley and $206,000 to overhaul the mansion's security system.
The 25-room stone mansion in the Jacobean Revival architectural style was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
More than 7,000 visitors have toured the residence since Mr. Taft took office in January 1999, Taft spokesman Scott Milburn said Friday.
“It's really more than a place where the governor and the first lady sleep,” Mr. Milburn said. “It's a conference center, it's a showplace for Ohio history and culture.
“The Tafts want to be sure they continue to be good stewards of this historic home,” the spokesman said.
Lawmakers continue to debate the proposed capital budget, introduced last week. House Finance Chairman Robert Corbin, a Dayton Republican, has scheduled a tentative vote in the finance committee Tuesday.
Also included in the budget is $500,000 to repaint parts of the Statehouse rotunda, where a ven tilation problem has apparently caused moisture to damage the paint.
A $121 million renovation to the 139-year-old Statehouse was completed in 1996.
It appears that a difference in temperature and humidity between an attic above the rotunda and the air-conditioned rotunda area is responsible for the moisture, said Ron Keller, executive director of the Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board.
“We don't really know for sure that's what it is,” he said Friday. “We've eliminated a lot of other things — we currently have tests going on right now to determine it.”
The construction budget also includes $2.1 million to upgrade the sprinkler system in the Statehouse's underground garage, $215,000 to upgrade the garage's elevators and $1 million to upgrade the Statehouse's security system, including new security cameras and video recorders.
“These things have been on 24 hours a day for seven years,” Mr. Keller said. “There's a life expectancy.”
Repairs to the governor's mansion include a major electrical upgrade to the house and staff quarters, replacement of rotted wood beams in a sun room, repair of crumbling stone walls in the garden and a new heating and ventilation system in the adjoining staff quarters, Mr. Milburn said.
He wouldn't comment on the security upgrade, except to say that it would replace outdated equipment.
Sgt. Gary Lewis, a spokesman for the state Highway Patrol, also declined to discuss specifics of mansion security.
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