MASSENA -- The village will hold off repairing the crumbling Massena Fire Department floor until after the firefighters hold the Hall of Fame banquet Sept. 18 and the Fire Prevention Week banquet next month.

“The tile has to be removed. Their annual banquet is in about five weeks,” Mayor Tim Currier told the Board of Trustees on Tuesday. “They want to know if it’s a problem delaying that work until after the banquet so their hall is available.”

“I go back to the most recent engineer report. As long as they’re not parking above it, it’s safe underneath,” Trustee Matt Lebire said.

The board hired Zangrilli Engineering to look at the floor and make recommendations. They said it is safe as long as the firetrucks aren’t parked on it, which they are not.

At the August board meeting, Public Works Superintendent Hassan Fayad said he thought the building should be closed, but said he hadn’t had a chance to study it as thoroughly as Zangrilli.

“I would not park my pickup truck … I would not park any vehicle on there,” Fayad said last month. “If you ask me to put my professional stamp on it, I would close it. I don’t want to be responsible for a chunk of concrete falling on someone.”