Summary of ECA Board Meeting April 28, 2015

Board Present: Steven Schattman, Sharon Bobb, Patricia Batey, Jim Jones, John McNerney, Alfred Muller, Jim Vuko

Others Present: ECA General Manager Terry Lee, Legum & Norman Regional Manager James Santos, Ken Kosteva of Wiss, Janney, Elstner

President’s Report

Steven Schattman urged ECA members to attend the annual meeting May 6 or to turn in their proxies.

At the May 26 Board meeting (the next monthly Board meeting), the draft budget that was recently sent to Association members will be voted on.

Report on Building Façade Work, Balcony Renovation, and Window/Balcony Door Installation

—This project is scheduled for completion the end June.

—To date there has been one balcony door installation failure.

—The pool will be closed for a week starting next week to attend to the window installation, which had been started but not completed.

—Arcade windows will not be replaced during this project.

—Windows in the West Lobby were replaced during the Lobby Renovation Project and will only require minor attention during this project.

Highlights of the Meeting

The management office and business center will get new copiers.

The pool facility requires tile work that Management is actively pursuing.

Water aerobics teacher requested free access to the party room for an exercise class. Issues included free access for a commercial offering and interference for regularly scheduled construction and committee meetings. A compromise may be offered for access at an earlier time with a small fee.

Tutorial on the Cost Difference of In-house versus L&N Engineer Position

Pat Batey offered a detailed explanation about erroneous information used in a passed board meeting to decide whether our Chief Engineer should be on ECA staff rolls or on Legum & Norman’s rolls. The initial calculation done by L&N was based on our past Chief Engineer’s salary and payouts to the total of $40,000 versus $9900. The calculation should have been based on market salary levels for an engineer. This erroneous cost savings was outlined at the August 2014 Board meeting and used to approve the Chief Engineer position as an L&N staff member. Then, as in this meeting, Batey, Bobb, and Jones had advocated for the Chief Engineer position being on ECA staff in order to preserve institutional memory. This information may prove useful in future decision-making.

Committee Reports

Participation Committee continues to work on the campaign to update the ECA Bylaws starting with the initiative to lower the number of votes required to change ECA bylaws. So far votes by proxy count 66% of the Association in favor of the change. To pass, the vote must tally 75%. ECA legal counsel said the Board would be allowed to vote for property owned by the Association that includes two apartments and numerous parking spaces. The Board voted to support the Bylaw change amendment.

Making a Difference Committee—The next big drive will occur in the fall of 2015 and support projects outlined by The Wider Circle.

Comments from Floor

The annual meeting package went to ECA members with two errors: Peg Downey’s name was left off her statement of candidacy and the introduction erroneously stated that members should vote for “four (3) members to the Board of Directors.” Peg Downey requested that the error be corrected in advance of the annual meeting.

Meet the 2015 ECA Board Candidates—a few comments

This year we have five candidates—Charles Bressler, Clifford Cohen, Peg Downey, Jim Jones,  and Alfred Muller—running for three board positions. It takes a lot of energy and courage to run.

The candidate who presented best was Peg Downey, who not only has the experience we need (one of her strong suits is finances), but has a long time involvement with Association committees as well as great ideas for how to make our Association run better.

Two surprising things happened at this year’s Meet the Candidates program:

— a sitting board member, and not an impartial moderator, ran the question and answer period, and

—one of the candidates, currently a sitting board member, revealed names and actions for something that happened in an executive board meeting that is supposed to be protected information since it involved Elizabeth staff members.

In the recent past, the Meet the Candidates program was moderated by a Legum and Norman representative, but for this April 23, 2015, program, the Elizabeth Condominium Association president Steven Schattman took that role. He used that position to ask the first question, which was to reveal who among these candidates would not attend every board meeting. He also did this without noting that last year he did not attend the ECA Annual Meeting nor will he be attending the Annual Meeting this year.

One needs to stop and think why the sitting president would want to ask the first question of the program without allowing audience members to think of such a line of inquiry themselves. One can only think that he wished to eliminate certain candidates and prejudice audience members. Frankly, I found all the candidates gave satisfactory answers about how they would fulfill their obligation if elected to the board because that is the point of this question. Board members are volunteers and they have other things going on in their lives as does Mr. Schattman.

It’s a fact, as those of us who regularly attended monthly ECA meetings know, personnel matters are handled privately in executive meetings of the ECA board. Alfred Muller addressing the sensitive issue of how former front desk staff members were suddenly dismissed from the ECA payroll, revealed by name how the voting on that issue played out. Acknowledging that he should not be speaking about the details of this matter, Dr. Muller used this opportunity to promote his alliance with the sitting president, who is not up for reelection this year.

I question Dr. Muller’s ethics, judgment, and his viability as a board member.