Thursday, March 1, 2012

~~~~~~~~~~~Experience is the Best Teacher ~~~~~~~

Hello Southpointers!


Let me first deal with a few of the questions that have been raised while Donna Berger's descriptions of dysfunctional and successful Boards of Directors was published in the Blog.

The roofs:  Vinnie and Richard are in the process of attempting to find out:

  •   whether our insurance will cover us for the loss of our Johns Manville twenty year warranty. Johns Manville suspended the warranty on the grounds that we began construction (the water towers) on the roofs without properly notifying them.
  •  whether we have grounds to sue the contractors who worked on the roof while the water towers were replaced. There were several contractors, including the un-insured and unlicensed Best Bet.  After the fact, a consultant was hired by Vinnie and Richard who attempted, without success, to get the contractors to assume liability.   
  • The consultant turned out to be the same consultant who had advised our insurance company not to pay for our roofs after Wilma. Marty Glazer, my predecessor,  managed to convince our insurance company to ignore their own consultant's advice and pay us in full for the roofs.  (North, South, and the connecting building.)

We were lucky because there has been no hurricane since the warranty was suspended.  We got through one full hurricane season without a warranty for the roofs. Had there been a hurricane we would have had to pay for repairs or replacement out of our own pockets.  ($1,000,000, more or less.) 

At this point we have turned to our Insurance Broker who is attempting to find a solution. 

  • Experience is the best teacher. It would have been a good idea for Vinnie and Richard Gabriell to have discussed the roof and potential problems with the Board and with other knowledgeable parties before they began construction.  Instead, after they ran into trouble Marty Glazer was given a list of questions to answer.  
  •  The President and the Vice-President, Lenny Champagne, have isolated part of the Board from all consultation and consideration. They have sought neither compromise nor consensus.  
  • They have committed Southpoint to expenditures without Board approval or even discussion.  
  • Not only should Directors participate in decision making, but also every owner should know what is going on.  That has not been the case this past year.

Can we learn from past mistakes?   Let us hope that the next Board consults with its predecessors and keeps the Owners well-informed. 


The Kitchen:

You may not know this but a kitchen is being constructed in the North Building. I am in favor of a kitchen, but I believe that we should change our DOCs before building it. A kitchen is not provided for in the documents.

In my last budget I had provided money for the kitchen, but no effort to change the DOCs was made. When Vinnie came into office, the money was still in the budget.

Now the kitchen is being built. The Documents have not been changed.

There are other DOCUMENT and rule changes needed.   Perhaps the new Board will assign a committee to work on changes and then to work on getting the requisite number of Owners to agree to the changes.

After all, the Documents were written when we lived in a very different world. Our DOCs, like our building should keep up with the times in which we live. 

Arrears:

Could we have a monthly statement of accounts receivable and accounts payable.?  It could be in a draft form, subject to correction, but Owners should have an idea what the financial situation of Southpoint is, and how it has changed during the month. 

My pet project:

A communication system that would link all owners with computers to Southpoint.  This communication system would be used to allow Owners to know everything from whether or not there are packages in the package room to a list of every contract to which  Southpoint is a party. 

Owners could request repairs and a permanent record of the date of request and the date of repair would be maintained. 

If desired by the Owners Southpoint's monthly or quarterly reports could be posted. 

There would be a much more secure method of controlling the keys to each unit. 

This company is only one of several that provide the software for building wide communication systems.  


Please take a look at the link.  Cut and paste into the address bar of your computer.

     www.buildinglink.com  

---------------------------------------------------------

.mike

Michael E Katz
Director
Southpoint

954-563-0959 

katz8356@comcast.net

www.Southpoint-Condo.Blogspot.com