GIBSON CITY — A motion hearing has been set for 2:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 5, in Ford County Circuit Court for a lawsuit filed by Gibson City over a botched roofing job that caused water to leak into City Hall and the adjoining police department building and vehicle garage.
The lawsuit was filed Aug. 29 against Mahomet-based Copper Creek Contractors and its owner, Jeremy Janes, along with Mid-West Coatings Group Inc., a dissolved roofing company that Janes once partially owned, and its successor company, Midwest C&A Inc. The 12-count suit seeks monetary damages in excess of $50,000 for each count, plus interest charges, to recover the city’s estimated losses totaling at least $582,490.
According to court records, a motion for an extension of time was filed on Oct. 7 by an attorney for the defendants, who requested a jury trial.
Copper Creek Contractors was hired by the city in August 2022 to replace the flat roofs above City Hall and the adjoining police department and garage for $360,000. The lawsuit said Janes promised to install a long-lasting, extensively upgraded, warrantied roof over each of the three attached buildings. However, shortly after Midwest Coatings’ installation of the new roof — which utilized a “polyurea spray-foam roofing system” — it began to leak.
According to the complaint, only later — after a series of repeated leaks — did Janes reveal to city officials that the spray-foam technique used on the roof was “experimental.” Despite an apologetic Janes’ promises that he would replace the roof in spring 2024 at no further cost to the city, the work was not completed, and the city ended up hiring another company — Urbana based Bash Pepper Roofing Co. — to replace it instead.
“Copper Creek’s, Janes’ and Mid-West Coatings’ work on the Gibson City roofs has been described by another roofing contractor as an absolute trainwreck,” the lawsuit said, “both because the spray foam was a bad choice and because so many of the details were done wrong.”
The lawsuit added that Janes did not disclose his 33% ownership interest in Mid-West Coatings or that the company was incorporated just three months earlier and was not yet licensed to operate as a roofing business by the Illinois Department of Financial & Professional Regulation.
“Copper Creek and Janes omitted to tell Gibson City any of these facts while trying to induce Gibson City to pay more than double the original budget from public funds for an allegedly extensive upgrade that was actually just an experiment,” the lawsuit said.