The hot weather for the last several weeks has been taxing on Selma residents, pushing them inside into the air conditioning. But for those who work in Selma’s City Hall, there is no escape from the heat.

The Selma City Council called a special meeting Monday to discuss plans for fixing the air conditioning unit, discovering an immediate solution and to vote on a long-term plan to entirely restore the system.

According to the city’s Director of Public Buildings, Kay Jones, the council was aware of the problems with the unit in March, but temperatures then were bearable and the additional units in the building were able to help cool the building somewhat.

“It wasn’t completely broken at that time but it was going to be broken,” Jones said about when a repair company surveyed the system in March. It was at this time that the mayor brought a report before the council about the condition of the system.

Currently the units for the downstairs and parts of the upstairs are broken. The Council Chamber room is a comfortable 70 degrees.

“The mayor tried to deal with this problem two or three years ago, but we decided otherwise and it has come back to haunt us,” Council President Cecil Williamson said. “The mayor had $350,000 originally in a bond to take care of this, but the council in its wisdom took it out and gave each ward $50,000.”

The council now faces the cost of not only having to repair the air conditioning unit for more than $60,000, but also replace the entire unit for a long-term solution. The mayor said he believes this undertaking will cost the city more than $500,000. And all of these costs come after a $67,800 repair to the convention center air conditioning unit earlier in the summer.

“I think [the system] was installed in 1975 and it’s so old that there are no parts still being made,” Jones said.

Jones informed the council that it would be another two to three weeks before the current system was fixed, due to waiting on parts to be specially made and shipped in. After several suggestions on a temporary plan on how to deal with the next several weeks without cool air, the council voted to purchase three to five portable air conditioning units for the time being. They also voted to move forward with replacing the entire system in possibly the fall and they expect to spend more than $350,000.

“It’s better to just bite the bullet now just one time and get it fixed forever,” Williamson said.