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.

Summary of ECA Board Meeting March 24, 2015

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

Absent: Patricia Batey

Others Present: ECA General Manager Terry Lee, Legum & Norman Senior Vice President DC Metro Division Greg Robey.

Highlights of the Meeting

Board Election 2015. Three seats on the ECA Board are open for candidates. Consider running for the Board.

Building Renovations: Ken Kosteva of Wiss, Janney, Eistner reported that despite adverse weather that the balcony-window-balcony door-building restoration work was close to the target completion dates. The target completion date is early May.

Also present to answer questions was Jon Lane of Managanaro but most of the questions were directed to Kosteva.

Attendees were given the floor to make comments and ask questions. While some people were satisfied with the work done on their units, many others expressed their dismay including several owners where the windows installed did not fit properly and had to be remade. Many comments pertained to the long lack of access to unit balconies. Some of the other complaints were: doors that did not fit, window hung crooked, damage to flooring, insufficient clean up afterward.

One additional issue that came up in the audience comment period pertained to getting a tax energy credit for our new windows.  Molly Frantz insists that this is possible for those who got their windows installed in 2014 but there is some information that is needed. The construction representatives say that the matter is complicated by how the windows were assembled and to get the accreditation required a hefty cost and time delay no one in management was willing to undertake.

Renewal of the Legum & Norman Contract: ECA President Steve Schattman had planned to have the Board renew the L&N contract for three years but he and the Board received many communications from ECA members requesting an evaluation of L&N (possibly with an outside reviewing agent), going out for bids from several management companies, and holding off on signing the L&N contract until the new Board is seated in May. A compromise was offered such that the L&N contract would run for one year starting in July.

Attendees were given time to comment with the same kind of satisfaction/dissatisfaction ratio heard about the building renovations. Communication breakdown seemed to be the biggest problem such that residents reported problems to our management office without getting timely or adequate service.

BuildingLInk. An add-on to BuildingLink called KeyLink will be installed in April. This will help manage the security of security keys kept at the front desk. Reminder: BuildingLink has an electronic library of documents, including minutes and condo documents. Over 100 people have signed onto BuildingLink and people are using the electronic bulletin board function.

Approvals:

The Winkler Pool contract was approved. (However, the pool is currently closed until April 22, 2015, because of window replacement there and other maintenance work.

A budget for landscape maintenance was approved.

Garage doors replacement was approved.

Draft budget has been accepted and will be voted on in May by the new Board.

Tabled: The elevator contract is up for renewal but it was tabled.

Committees:

Participation Committee is making progress with its campaign to update the ECA Bylaws.

Fitness Committee: an old treadmill was replaced.

Old Business

Noise from water pump continues. It can be heard in West Tower elevator Lobby and a resident owner’s apartment.  The problem is over one year running.

ECA Issues That May Concern You

Budget Workshop (March 19, 2015)

I attended the workshop meeting that included:

Board members: Steven Schattman, Sharon Bobb, Jim Jones, John McNerney, Alfred Muller, Jim Vuko. (Patricia Batey was absent.)

Others Present: ECA General Manager Terry Lee, Legum & Norman Regional Manager James Santos, and various members of the ECA Budget Committee.

Given that we are currently using our line of credit to fund the replacement of window and balcony doors and that the work was slowed considerably by adverse weather, the ECA is doing pretty well with the budget. Therefore, ECA did not borrow as much money as was originally planned for. In fact ECA borrowed over $1 million less than originally planned. The expected debt payoff is anticipated to be in 2019.

One issue that was brought up of critical concern is the increasing number of pinhole leaks throughout the building. This means that as our copper pipes age, they are springing leaks which are causing damage in individual apartment units and in common areas throughout the Elizabeth.

Can something be done about these pinholes leaks? Yes, pipes can be sealed to prevent future leaks. Recently this was done at the Carlton with success and is currently being tested at the Sommerset. Both buildings are much younger than the Elizabeth.

Is this procedure in our budget and what does it cost? Yes, $1.7 million is our projected budget for this project, but not until the Fiscal Year of 2021. Should we wait 5 years to fix this problem? How many more apartments will be damaged by pinhole leaks by FY 2021?

Given that problems with pinholes leaks in the ECA are increasing and we are poised to refurbish our hallways with new carpets, we are looking at the alarming possibility of additional remedial repairs that go well beyond the cost of stopping our pipes from leaking.

If you attended the February Board meeting, you probably know that approximately $200,000 in claims against our master insurance policy were made in 2014, primarily due to sewage backup. As a result the master insurance deductible is estimated to double from $5,000 to $10,000 for sewage backups and the cost for insurance will go up for the next five years. This does not take into account a unit owner’s out-of-pocket costs for pinhole leaks, or additional claims against the unit owner’s household insurance policy should he or she be unlucky enough to suffer such a problem.

The Upcoming ECA Board Meeting (March 24, 2015)

On the agenda now posted in our elevators is renewal of the Legum & Norman contract which has been going month to month since July. The contract involves a considerable amount of money.

Has the ECA Board conducted a performance evaluation of Legum & Norman? I do not know of one and think this is overdue. Yes, in the years they have worked for us some very good things have been accomplished.

Personally I would like to encourage that we go out for competitive bids to see what other companies can offer us. Given the concern about budgets and watching our money, I think it is imperative that we get our financial data on time for monthly board meetings. Consistently Legum & Norman has been unable to do this.

Those who live on the West side, have you heard the water pump noise in the elevator lobby? It has been going on for over a year without L&N finding a viable solution to the problem. It was caused by the installation of a new water pump in November 2013. Unfixed machine room noise heard in a lobby diminishes our property values.

These are just two areas of concern but, having spoken to a number of owners, these L&N management issues are not the only ones.

This sitting Board meets only one more time before the Annual Meeting on May 6. The decision for management of the Elizabeth should be addressed by the new board. This is a logical and expected strategy to ensure we have the best management solution by the board that will have to enact it.

If you feel strongly about this issue, write to the ECA Board now and ask that a Request for Proposal be written so that we can compare what management companies can offer us.

President Steven Schattman: sschattman@verizon.net

Vice-President Sharon Bobb: sbobb.sb@verizon.net

Treasurer John McNerney: strachasher@verizon.net

Secretary Jim Vuko: jvuko@conference.com

At-Large:

Patricia Batey: pat.batey512@gmail.com

Jim Jones: jonesjcz@gmail.com

Alfred Muller: g2mdal@aol.com

Here is a short report on the BuidlingLink event we had recently.

Please be sure your telephone contact information is correct in BuildingLink because your life, your family, and pets may depend on this (more details read below).

On Saturday, March 14, Robert Garcia of BuildingLink spoke to residents about enhanced features on the system and answered the questions of users. He addressed many of the key features of BuildingLink, and was pleasantly surprised to see how robust and well-developed our website is.  He was particularly impressed by our Library, which has 196 documents loaded, and our Pet Park, which contains the ECA’s House Rules regarding pets.

In order to fully implement BuildingLink, the following activities are planned.  All need input and support from residents:

1.     Test of the Emergency Broadcast System.  This system sends emergency alerts to all residents’ homes and/or cell numbers.  Examples of such alerts might be for false fire alarms, elevator outages, water shutdowns, and the like.

The alerts can be sent simultaneously to all residents, or, depending on the nature of the alert, can be confined to those on specific floors, tiers, or Towers. 

In order to test the Emergency Broadcast System, it is imperative that all residents (regardless of whether they use a computer or not) have their phone numbers accurately listed in BuildingLink.  If you do not use a computer, see the Concierge or go to the Management Office for assistance.  If you use BuildingLink, simply log on and complete your profile. (You may choose to keep your profile private or public at this time as well.)  Tests of the Emergency Broadcast System will be announced.

2.     The Bulletin Board is now loaded in BuildingLink and up-to-date.  If you do not have a computer, you may request a printed copy of the Bulletin Board at the Concierge Desk.  This is very convenient for all of our residents, because you no longer need to scramble for pen and paper if you see an item of interest on the Bulletin Board.  The printed copy is yours to take home, pore over, and use.

3.     Pet Registration.  Please make it a point to register your pets in the Pet Park, and load their adorable photos there.  The Pet Park enables pet owners to create and participate in pet-specific forums. If you do NOT have a computer, you may bring your information to the concierge desk or the office for loading.

4.     WebCam.  BuildingLink encourages its buildings to have photos for service providers who will enter residents’ homes. These would include: care givers, housekeepers, contractors, dog walkers, and those working in your apartment. This extra precaution allows the Concierge to recognize those you have authorized to pick up your key, receive a parking pass, pick up packages, or gain access to your apartment.  It is particularly helpful for any new person at the Concierge Desk, or someone filling in temporarily there.  Photos taken by the WebCam can be viewed ONLY by the Concierge and no one else.  Your neighbors cannot view the photos. Pictures which appear on profiles in the public directory are those uploaded by individual residents specifically to share in that forum.