ONEIDA — The pile of debris that was once the Madison House Restaurant has been a thorn in the city’s side, but action was taken at Tuesday’s Common Council meeting.

The city council voted unanimously to waive the rule to vote on an item not on the agenda and advertise for bids for demolition cleanup at 140 Madison Street.

140 Madison Street, better known as the Madison House, was declared unsafe in June 2022, and an order was given to the property owner to demolish the structure within 90 days.

After the meeting, Acker said that due to the expense of the removal, the property owners had tried to work with the city.

"The property owners had expressed interest in turning the property over to the city, but they also mentioned that there could be a mortgage or a lien on the property," Acker said. "So we had to search for that because we didn’t want to take over the property if that was the case. It’d be an expense to the taxpayer."

The city was in talks with the property owner from September to November while a search was being undertaken. And then, in December, the building’s roof collapsed, and it was deemed unsafe.

"The building came down before we could finalize anything," Acker said. "The property owners have walked away, and ultimately, it will be the city’s expense."

If that wasn’t enough, the issue of cleanup was another expense that couldn’t be taken care of immediately.

"We had to wait and couldn’t do the debris cleanup in-house because it’s considered hot, meaning there could be asbestos," the mayor said. "So we need to have professionals remove it. And with so much snow, they couldn’t do a site visit. But now we’re going out to bid."

With the weather turning, Acker said the resolution to go out to bid was added to Tuesday's meeting outside of the regular agenda to avoid waiting another two weeks until the next meeting.

"Now that the weather’s broke, we want to do this as soon as possible," she said. "We were talking about doing this even before the council meeting."

The next Common Council meeting will be on Tuesday, April 4 at 6:30 p.m. in the Common Council chambers.