Summary of ECA Board Meeting November 27, 2015

Board Present: Sharon Bobb, Patricia Batey, Clifford Cohen, Peg Downey, Jim Jones, John McNerney, Steven Schattman

Others Present: ECA General Manager Terry Lee; Legum & Norman Regional Manager James Santos; Jeremy Tucker, Lerch Early and Brewer

Highlights of the meeting:

Duct cleaning in individual apartments will take 3-5 days to complete once it is scheduled. Management is working on obtaining discounted prices for unit owners who wish to have AmeriClean clean the ducts in their individual units.  Management will make that information available shortly.  Unit owners wishing to take advantage of the discounted price will be invoiced separately.

Access problem to resident garage door was caused by a burned out laser reader. The part responsible for the door being blocked had to be ordered, which is why the door was blocked for so many days.

Out-of-order Garage elevator— a part is on order. The Board asked if is this covered in the contract ECA has with Otis. General Manager Terry Lee said probably the labor is covered but not the part.

Two motions unanimously passed. One motion was to change to LED lights [in the garage and associated stairwells) for a cost of $15,000.  The energy savings would result in a payback of that cost in two years or less.  The other motion was to remove sections of domestic hot water pipes in tiers that have had pinhole leaks or tiers with pipes that showed erosion in 2012.  Highly eroded pipes are susceptible to pinhole leaks. The sections removed will be sent out for testing to determine the extent of erosion and to guide us in effective treatment.  14 samples from the East and West towers will be tested.

Committee Reports

Conversation with Board October 24 addressed issues with pool use and pool temperature. This is resulting in a survey on pool usage and why some folks don't use the pool.

Design Committee has an upcoming meeting November 2.

Budget is reviewing ways of presenting the budget and finance matters to make it easier for people to understand— perhaps pie charts.

Ad hoc smoking committee is having a presentation by an attorney with U MD Law Center on Nov 10 in the West Lobby to discuss legal issues associated with smoking in a high-rise building. Also, survey questionnaire has been distributed and results will be analyzed and tabulated in a few weeks and provided to all residents.

RFP Committee—work nearly done.

Special report that Compared the Elizabeth to other condos in Friendship Heights—Barbara Pollack went over her report since there were some questions about the process and emphasis.

Thanks to attending neighbors for helping me prepare this summary of highlights.

Notes from the ECA Town Hall Meeting on ePIPE, October 6, 2015

Board Members present: Sharon Bobb, Pat Batey, Peg Downey, Jim Jones, John McNerney

http://www.restoremypipes.com

As an alternative to re-piping (tearing out walls to replace failed domestic water pipes) in the Elizabeth, a vendor named ePIPE gave a presentation to a large number of ECA members.

ePIPE benefits include:

—Patented epoxy that lines old pipes to close pinhole leaks.

—No walls need to be torn out unless the pipe is beyond repair.

—Relatively low cost because construction costs are diminished since walls, ceilings, and floors are not torn out. Price is 20 to 50% cheaper than re-piping.

—Epoxy lining dries in two hours and water goes back on the same day in most cases.

—The process is quiet unlike re-piping.

—ePIPE process restores water flow. (This happens in the pipe-cleaning phase of the process.)

—Rust is removed from the pipe that causes water to turn brown. ECA may not have this problem.

—Accreditations by NSF (The Public Health and Safety Organization) http://www.nsf.org/regulatory/regulator-nsf-certification

  and IAMPMO (http://pld.iapmo.org/file_info.asp?file_no=0004058)

http://www.iapmo.org/pages/getcertified.aspx

—Process is done in short runs and in a building like the Elizabeth, it is done tier by tier.

—Environmentally safe and causes no change in water quality (does not cause water to taste strange). The epoxy is solvent free.

—Comes with a 10-year warranty while new pipe comes with a one-year warranty.

ePIPE caveats:

—Bathroom and kitchen renovations may require consultation with ePIPE representative. Sweating of pipes is not permitted because high temperatures will damage the epoxy lining. Every valve is tagged warning that this pipe may not be soldered.

—Better to do ePIPE process before pinhole leaks become pervasive.

More information: http://www.restoremypipes.com

Neighboring condominiums that have used ePIPE and report satisfaction with the service:

—The Carlton

—Somerset 1

Major Competitor:

CuraFlo from Arizona. Does not offer two-hour curing.

10/4/15 Town Hall Meeting on Property Management RFP Process

Board Members present: Sharon Bobb, Pat Batey, John McNerney

Folake Fabunmi, a member of the RFP Committee currently reviewing proposals from property management companies, presented an overview of the RFP process. Then questions and comments were invited from Association members. Here are some of the highlights.

Communications between the residents, owners (onsite and off), Board, and management company was commented on and emphasized in a variety of ways. Association members are interested in timely responses to their inquiries (whether done through email, BuildingLink, and/or phone calls) from a management company and some, though not all, were interested in more use of BuildingLink, our web-based service. Most agreed that communications should be done in a variety of ways to ensure that everyone can expect to receive timely information. This would include paper, email, BuildingLink, elevator notices, etc. In particular, the management company should follow up on issues reported to front desk and have clear procedures to encourage office/front desk coordination.

Financial Management was a matter of big concern. Such concerns voiced included:

—Integrating the financials with the maintenance budget and improvement plan (MR&R capital improvement plan); communicating on budget matters more clearly, especially dealing with condo fees.

—Presenting financial information in as simple a way possible so that everyone can understand.

—Budgeting and accounting for capital expenditures and appropriately tracking variances need to be emphasized.

—Understanding how to manage and update a capital management plan, such as the one the Elizabeth is currently undergoing.

—Understanding the management company’s responsibility in the procurement processes done on behalf of the Association, especially when the management company has made a vendor recommendation.

—Acquiring a robust database for daily updated and integrated information to provide custom reports as needed.

Human Resources. A number of questions were raised, particularly around the issue of keeping our current property management company. Some people advocated for keeping the Legum & Norman to maintain continuity with the employees.

—Can we keep some of the current employees if Legum & Norman is not selected as the ECA property management company?

—Can we give some points to Legum & Norman given their work on the capital improvement projects that the Elizabeth has completed?

—What are the trade offs between having a general manager who works directly for the ECA versus one who works for the property management company? The focus should be on competence.

—Can we start doing annual evaluations of property management personnel who work for the ECA?

Other areas of concern for our next property management team:

— Record Keeping.  There should be a clear record of current residents and owners in the building.

—Rentals. Ability of the management company to work proactively with the Board in an advisory capacity, especially around the topic of limiting the number of rentals in the building.

—Teamwork among management, Board and residents.

For the record, in the six years that Legum & Norman has been our management company, they have never been evaluated. While L&N has been in our employ, they have been given salary increase without annual performance evaluations.