YOUNGSTOWN — This one is for the birds.

The city has met the feathery enemy — and it has filled the city hall fire escape with a lot of unwanted gifts.

“We have a pigeon problem and we’re going to eliminate it,” Kevin Flinn, the city’s buildings and grounds commissioner, said. “The fire escape is saturated with this material. It’s almost hazardous.”

The pigeons gained access through holes to city hall’s enclosed fire escape and have covered the escape with bird droppings, Flinn said.

“We’re going to show them who runs the place,” he said. “Unfortunately, it’s them now. But we’re going to remove it.”

The board of control will vote today to pay $4,500 to Dave Nelson, Mahoning County’s deputy dog warden, “to remove pigeons and droppings from city hall and sanitize area,” according to its agenda. Nelson will be contracted privately and won’t do the cleanup in his capacity as a dog warden.

“There’s a handful of pigeons” that caused the problem, Flinn said. “I took a look at it — and that was it for me. We need to hire someone who can handle it. We need a functioning fire escape. The pigeons whitewashed almost the entire fire escape. You can’t smell it inside the building but you certainly can inside the fire escape.”

The fire escape is enclosed and runs down the seven-story city hall at 26 S. Phelps St.

“The fire escape is usable if, God forbid, there was a situation,” Flinn said. “But you just wouldn’t want to use it because you’d be stepping over bird droppings. It is what it is. The No. 1 priority is the safety of our staff and citizens. That’s why we take it seriously.”

The problem was discovered during a routine inspection, Flinn said.

It isn’t the first fire escape invasion of animals at city hall this year. City officials discovered some squirrels had climbed a couple of trees and entered the fire escape recently, causing problems, Flinn said.

“We had to remove the two trees they used to get in,” he said. “We’ll plant new trees that are less invasive to the structure of the building. The trees were growing up the side of the building.”

The fire escape will be repaired by city workers after Nelson is done cleaning the mess, Flinn said.

If the board of control approves the contract with Nelson, he is expected to work on the pigeon problem next week, Flinn said.

The attached police station had a similar issue recently but not to the level of city hall, Flinn said. That work was done in-house, he said.